The Gauis Turner Diary

 Here's some fiction I submitted for a local paper's Spook Story series  October 2017

Earlier this month when the impressive house finally came up for tax sale by the Minister of Finance office in Fredericton, I was beyond excited -- We’d heard the amazing history, learned about the significance of the landmark and about the contributions of the shipbuilding industry in Albert County -- and now we were the proud owners of what everyone else called the Turner House at ShipYard Park.

Unfortunately, since the last time we’d been in the house about two years ago,, it had suffered from the hands of thoughtless vandals whose ignorance of the value of the 200-plus year old structure was clear.  Beautiful antique porcelain bathroom fixtures were smashed, doors and windows broken, and the previous tenant’s contents strewn about with apparent reckless abandon -- books, papers, photographs, journals, videos, and artifacts, leaking roof peaks had allowed rain, snow, and probably creatures to invade and contribute to the decay and destruction.

There was a ton of work just getting things organized and cleaned before we could set to the task of repairing broken plaster, re-glazing smashed windows, fixing and replacing bathrooms, kitchen appliances and getting electrical and plumbing reconnections working safely.  It was exhausting, daunting, and I just didn’t remember it being so bad when we first saw the abandoned home.  

With broom, shovels, rubber gloves, and dust masks, we started filling rubbermaid trash bins with the mildewed books and ruined photographs intending to burn them, but as we scooped pile after pile of nasty, damp, and black mold paperwork I saw a leather-bound book with very old fashioned writing on the cover, and thought it was probably a special keepsake Harry Potter type book of some sort, since it looked newer and undamaged unlike all the others we were obviously going to destroy.

When I opened the cover, my heart started racing when I read the hand-written words:  To a keen pair, suitably matched, joined today, 16 August, in the year of Our Lord, 1876.  Gaius Samuel Turner and  Lucy E. Stiles.  May you find each day forward a gift and of accomplished industrious purpose. 

We stopped work immediately, and promptly sat down among the debris and started turning the pages that displayed intricately cut out his-and-her silhouettes, unfamiliar ingredient lists for short recipes reading: build a bigger fyre box than usual for a very hot oven and add several soft pinches of asafoetida to a spoon-drop dough.  

Though the writing appeared to be feminine, it became more clear the more we read on that it was Gaius’ writing, as he logged and accounted lumber orders, railway schedules, the death of his mother:

 “Elizabeth Colpitts, kindest model of motherhood and goodness has most dearly departed, I shall not bear witness to another woman as fine save my own dear Lucy, who shares this day’s sorrow with me.”

Page after page of daily notes, meals shared, notable neighbours, kindnesses extended, weather anomalies, trade business, lazy workhands on the property and at the shipyard, and then we read words of increasing desperation as he described Lucy’s failing health, including Dr. visits, elixirs mixed, tinctures administered and finally her quietly slipping into an “unwakeable slumber” when she was pronounced dead.

“I feel she hasn’t yet left us, she is now utterly still but I cannot accept that my soul is not somehow still attached wyth her.  How is it possible to not acknowledge what I have been told as fact, and begin to wonder if I, too, am facing such a journey as grief has gripped me in mind and body this cold spring of 1892.”

Entry after entry describes how he implored the Doctor to revive her, that for several days before her burial he felt certain she was in a fast, deep, sleep, and that he was determined that she could be woken.

“My mynd is not so beset with denial.   Though my education did not benefit from study of the human body, I surely must be intelligent enough to know her spirit has not left, so must trust that quackery does not confound the good Doctor to know that her life has ended, as mine will one day, too.”

It was sad to continue to read, as he described his own failing health, his time in General Assembly and the distractions in Fredericton that served to take his mind away from Lucy’s impending burial. 

“To bury a wife who in death is still vibrant is an abomination -- I am told tyme and tyme repeatedly that she is gone but how is it to be that our bond was too strong to allow me to believe it is not so, or for anyone else to think I’m not mad with grief to consider it true -- she did not perish; my final kiss to her cool, not death-cold, forehead still returned her familiar loving connection.”

He wrote less and less, and final entries in early April, 1892, were becoming more scant -- Then blank, and we remember we learned in the archives that was the year he died -- after a “lengthy illness”.  How grief takes its toll.  

We put the special book aside, a treasured keepsake to be sure.  And talked about how powerful the mind is to allow him to continue to believe that she never really died, and drove him to near madness which in those days most certainly must have contributed to what was described as his lengthy illness.

We resumed our task of cleaning, sorting -- now with a more careful eye to treasure hunting hoping to uncover more valuable archives.  We filled the bin and took it out back to dig a burn pit.  Using an old maddock found in the shed, and a brand new shovel from Kent’s we both set to breaking up the overgrowth and dig down a safe distance from the neglected back lot behind the house, careful to spread dirt wide so the dry grasses wouldn’t catch fire.  The new shovel was more helpful than the maddock and each dig produced good moist soil to pile to the side of a trench we dug to dump the burnable house debris.  

A loud CLUNK stopped us both short on our efforts and we realized we were hitting wood not rock.  Worried that we’d unearthed the top to an old septic or cistern we brushed away the dirt and found that more of its length was still under more soil, so we cleared away several rocks, cut off a few hindering roots and realized it was all very thick plank wood.  More treasure?  We jumped to the immediate conclusion that it was ship board from the shipyard, and used the shovel to dig under its edge to see if we could pry it out!

For this, the maddock was of more use, so with its broad flat curved end we wiggled it under the longest edge of the plank and levered and leaned and pried back and forth until it SPRANG up with a crack so loud it startled us with its surprising release and we both fell backward on the freshly created mound of dirt behind us.

What we thought was just a long and wide plank of ship building material was anything but.  What was revealed was instead the lid of a coffin and its contents. Not a skeleton like you see in movies, cartoons, or halloween decorations but a cluster of bones, cloth, hair and STINK.

We just sat and stared.  It was too unbelieveable.  After the plank so quickly popped up,  time just seemed to slow down.  The smell slowly assaulted us, the vision took some moments to realize, the reality of what we were looking at didn’t set in for several minutes.  We held hands and just took it in.

Then we saw it.  The underside of the plank.  The deep scratches in the wood that were NOT caused by the maddock.  The gouges, the splinters, the broken finger bones, so many broken finger bones…..Gaius was right….Lucy hadn’t been dead, afterall.  

Naming Crooked Creek Covered Bridge #3

Here's a little story I wrote for a local Spooky Story edition of a local periodical.  October 2017 

Naming Crooked Creek Bridge #3

Crisp air, vibrant fall colours, a picnic lunch, and probably the last use I’d get out of my well-worn hiking boots -- we tossed water bottles and phone charger into the car.  I wanted to capture all those colours to get us through the long winter ahead.

Though there are many covered bridges in Albert County, we’d never made the trek to Crooked Creek # 3.  There’s the 45 Road, Sawmill Creek, Midland Road, and others -- we’d even ventured out to King’s County to visit more of those long-standing icons of New Brunswick.  But the more strenuous hike up the old logging road to see #3 kept putting me off; I love scenery, but not exertion and sweating.

Naturally I’d read all about the history of the bridges, but it’s the local stories that have been told in the post office lobby, standing with ice cream or coffee in front of Crooked Creek Convenience Store at the corner, or shared while shuffling the deck at card parties.

It’s the old-timers that have the best tales.  “If it isn’t true, it ‘oughta be!”, “Well, I heard it from a man who knows a fella who sez it’s true!”, and “anyway, take it as you hear it; my salt shaker don’t spill”.... So who knows what story is factual, augmented, entirely made up, embellished; they’re the fabric of the stories of our rural county living.

Before heading out, we stopped at the Buddha Bear coffee roasting cafe in Alma, and asked for extra sugar -- “I’ll need the energy today!” I told Peter, one of the owners.  When he asked what our plans for the day were, I explained our destination, shared my enthusiasm for exploring the last on our list of Albert County covered bridges, and asked if he’d been there yet.

Then I heard a harrumph at the coffee bar, and looked over to see an unfamiliar, older gray-haired man, with both hands wrapped around his mug of coffee, “Silly pursuits.” he muttered. I dropped my shoulders, and tsked.  “Don’t say that!” I cheerfully responded, “It’s a beautiful fall day, and we’re off on a fun little adventure; you’ll spoil it.”

“SPOIL IT?!” he barked back, “I’ll tell you about spoiling things…..how ‘bout a spoiled LIFE?”

Not knowing how to respond, we just watched him.  It was a little un-nerving, and we certainly didn’t want to engage with a hostile curmudgeon just as we were about to set out for a fun-filled day, but something seemed sad and lonely about him.  So we hesitated a moment more to see if what he’d say next.

He shifted a little, looked up slightly, and quickly glanced back and forth at both of us a few times.  “You married?” 

“Yes! 36 years ago this week, actually” I was proud to answer.  “That’s why we’re off this morning, an annual fall-colour outing to celebrate.”

“Yeah, well I was married once a long time ago -- longer than that in fact, and he looked back to his coffee cup with what looked like an odd mix of resentment and longing.  He made me nervous, so I nudged us along and said, “We’d better get going….” and he said quietly said, “Oh, sure, you love birds head off to that Bridge # 3 …. You’re so young, you probably don’t even know why it’s named that”…...looking up he met our faces, looked boldly, challengingly, and waited; his silence demanding a response.

…..”um, no I guess not, really…..”

He leaned back, picked up his coffee cup, took a sip, and started a story we’ll never forget.

I was young, about to be married, working in the woods, logging, hauling timber, cutting lumber, and it was the loneliest work I’d ever done.  Long exhausting days followed by dark cold nights spent in solitude that seemed even longer than the day.  

For my wedding, I hauled myself out of the woods at the end of the work season, crossed the Crooked Creek Bridge -- that was the name of it in those days -- ready to see my girl, get married, and end my days and nights of loneliness.   

He took another sip of coffee, nodding, remembering….he looked at us again, we looked at each other wondering if we should interrupt and just head off, but his look compelled us to stay for more of his narration.

In those days, we hauled our loads out of the woods by ground-skidding.  Horse teams, strong men, grappling, block and tackle, it was crummy work -- see what I did there?  The crummy was the wagon that took the crew out to the work site….yeah, you folks have no idea…..I was a feller, all right -- but when I came out of the solitude of the woods, I was a son-of-a-***** of a fella. -- excuse me, for that last one, Ma’m” 

-- he gave me a wink, and raised his cup to me for the apology, then to Peter for a refill on his coffee.

Well, that job got me enough to pay for my wedding and for a horse, so I bought it and hooked that old filly right up to our wagon, said “I DO”, and took my new bride out for our first ride together.  She cuddled right up to me on the box seat, and it was right nice.  But just as we were about to cross that Crooked Creek Bridge, that old filly reared, and jostled us all about, nearly tossing us out, and I worked hard to get her under control.  

As he described the incident, it looked like he was still holding the reins in one hand while holding on to his now invisible bride.  He bucked and jerked still seated on his bar seat, and we all felt the relief as he described the calm after the struggle.  

“That’s ONE” he said.

Well, we continued on, all calmed down and back again my dear bride slid close next to me, and just as we exited the other side of the bridge, didn’t that old horse do the same thing again…

Now he stood, pantomiming the actions, grimacing at the strength it took, his dark eyes were fully recalling the danger, the power of that horse, and the skill required to rein it back to safely righting their wagon.  

He sat back down, winded, took another sip of coffee, and said, “That’s TWO” and loudly clanked his cup back on the wooden bar as he sharply said the word TWO.

Well, by now, I’d had my fill of this uncooperative old horse, and decided to return it back to get my money back so I turned that horse right back around and headed back across the bridge to go home ….  He paused in thought.  Yup, so back through that bridge we go, and by now, naturally, my bride…. she’s disappointed, and scared, and all discombobulated, and don’t you know it just as we’re about to go into that covered bridge, don't she do it again,  

The old man JUMPS up, startling us, and he WHINNIES loudly!  We look over at Peter, who is captivated by what’s going on, and we are immediately redirected to the antics of this old-timer galloping, bucking, rearing, snorting, and pulling, imitating the horse’s actions this time instead of his own to control it.  We watched, wide eyed until he sat down.

He mopped his brow, caught his breath, sipped his coffee and quietly, flatly, resignedly stated,

“That’s THREE.”

And then he slowly and dramatically silently play acted;  pulling a gun out of his pocket, loading a bullet, cocking the imaginary gun, aimed precisely away from us, and yelled,

“BANG”

We ALL startled.

I shot that horse, and let her fall dead down the embankment.  We walked home in silence, leaving the wagon behind.

Thinking that was the end of the story, we grimaced.  Looking at Peter, back to each other, then around the cafe -- still no one else had come in, and it was awkward.

Well, it doesn’t end there, you see, when we got home, my new bride, she pouted and sulked.  I put on a fire, set the kettle on for a boil.  She just sat there.  Wouldn’t say a word.  Shock, I s'pose.  

We had some tea, and then I went round to the neighbour’s to borrow his horse to retrieve my wagon, and didn’t she insist that she come along, still quiet as a mouse.  We walked that horse back up the road to the bridge, and there was my wagon, and that’s when she first spoke again.  

He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and took out a 10 dollar bill, laying it on the bar securing it under his nearly empty cup.  Then he opened his wallet wide to show us a very old black and white photo of a plain woman in a simple wedding dress holding a small nosegay.  

That’s how she looked on our wedding day.  The day that she left me at Crooked Creek Covered Bridge # 3. 

You see when she finally broke her silence she cried, she nagged, she whined, she complained, she just wouldn’t stop talking saying things like …..”what kind of a honeymoon is this?  First, your impatience with an old horse, your temper, walking all that way on the muddy road in my beautiful dress….she rattled on and on.  Oh I listened.  I took it all.  When she got eventually got winded and fell silent again, I simply said to her, I said.

“That’s ONE”

"You must be talkin' to me, I don't see anybody else here...."

We usually have no neighbours. That’s probably a good thing. 

Just across the door yard at Cleveland Place we have the United Church of Canada, with its postage-stamp parking lot and modest stained glass windows. Since it was sold last summer, it’s not technically even a church anymore, so it stands empty. On our other side is “the old Kierstead house.” It’s long vacated by the original owners, and now owned by Parks Canada to house seasonal employees or researchers conducting their studies for nearby Fundy National Park.

  

Several years ago, it housed a few scientists studying the habits of the flying squirrel.  We'd often find stray bits of fluffy nesting materials or empty two-litre milk cartons the researchers had constructed for their nests.  On more than one occasion we spied a Parks Canada uniform scurrying across the Cleveland Place gardens wielding a contraption that looked like a 1950s TV antenna.  Apparently, there were a few micro-chipped squirrel escapees that favoured our grand maple trees to the “spartan carton” homes their researchers were providing for them. 

We'd become accustomed to the comings and goings of our short-term neighbours, and would often get to know them.  A welcoming basket of muffins or cookies, a ladder provided for one who'd forgotten a house key but left a window open – the neighbourly acts one would expect from time to time. 

One late summer we were surprised by the Parks Canada grounds crew out early in the morning with chain saws and a wood chipper attending to a large evergreen that stood tall between their house and ours. Carefully but with surprising speed, they cut down this natural privacy barrier on the property line, creating a sudden void.  Now the two-storey house was revealed and its white siding blankly stared back at us. From my pantry window, instead of the green branches of a stately pine, I could see right through the window into the house next door.  I felt sad for the loss and the tree's absence.  The crew explained that the overgrown tree threatened both houses should it come down in bad weather, and assured us a replacement tree would be planted in the spring. Still – it had had personality, and it housed pretty little birds. 

Fall passed, winter blew, and spring arrived.  Missing the birds, we erected a tall 4x4 post to hang a variety of feeders and hopefully attract these colourful visitors back to my pantry window viewing area.  And come back they did. So many kinds that I got a birding book ---how handy to have a bookshop attached to our kitchen -- so I could try to identify them.  Black-capped chickadees, yellow finches, loud and domineering blue jays, grackles, starlings, cedar waxwings, and loads of pigeons.   

The pigeons practically took over the feeders, and it became annoying. I found them fat, dull, and bullying, they scared away the other prettier birds and they tromped down the grass.  I started to become a bird racist. I’d get angry. When they gathered in groups I'd rap on the window and shout, "Get off my lawn!" and they'd sullenly take off, but then quickly and defiantly return.   

I changed the feed and seed, hoping they'd take their dining preferences elsewhere.  I wanted to see the pretty colourful feathers and cheerful little birdies at my window, but when the pigeons were around, the others would stay clear.   

I shared my frustrations with Stephen.  He listened patiently as always, but offered no advice or ideas.  

Then one early summer morning, I had just started to get the breakfast routine going when I saw Stephen already standing sleepily in the middle of the pantry, with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, wearing just his boxer shorts.  Bleary and bare-chested, he stood waving his free arm with wide sweeping and jabbing gestures, and swinging his coffee cup up and around slightly more carefully, with an expression of seething anger. 

Fascinated and a little concerned, I watched this display for a few moments wondering what was going on. 

Then I laughed as it dawned on me just what he was doing – he was shooing away my unwelcome pigeons.  My quick burst of laughter startled him just the way he’d hoped to startle the pigeons. But the main reason I laughed was that he’d clearly forgotten that this summer we had a new group of neighbours in the Parks Canada house … and the big tree was gone.  

  

No longer hidden behind its wide and thick evergreen boughs, there he was with all his naked hairy-chestedness in full view, grimacing, gesturing angrily, silently shouting at the window for who knows how long. I reminded him about the tree's absence and our new summer neighbours.  We'll never know if they got a show that morning – but we never exchanged goodies that summer, either. Coincidence? 

Do You Believe in Magic?

A Story of A Crisis. 

(with colour photos!)

Here at Cleveland Place over the years, there have been just a few serious crises that have caused concern and heartache.

There was the time Dad went for a shoreline winter hike at low tide many years ago, and didn't return at the appointed time.  Alarms were raised, rescue efforts employed, and Dad was found by spotlight in freezing rain on the side of a cliff.  He had been overcome by hypothermia and positioned himself just above the water at high-tide, but was unable to continue on. 

Then there was the time that a confused elderly guest became disoriented in the middle of the night during her stay at the B&B and fell down the back stairs and had to be taken away by ambulance.  She had fallen and couldn't get up.

And the year my folks recounted their shock when they returned to Cleveland Place from a winter getaway to a kitchen filled with standing water from burst pipes that ruined ceiling plaster, artwork, major appliances, and wallpaper.

But none of those compare to the most recent crisis at Cleveland Place.

A spoon has gone missing.

Not just any spoon.  This spoon: 

The Magic Spoon.  

It was purchased at least 15 years ago at a garage sale.  Found in a shoebox full of stray pieces of cutlery, dull knives, novelty key chains, and bottle openers it was gleaming and I asked its price.  It was originally from a cocktail set, long since separated from its companions, no longer retrieving tiny white onions from a tall jar for a gin martini or vodka Gibson.

I paid ten cents for it.  The best dime I ever spent.

It took pride of place always within reach right here at the helm of the Cleveland Place kitchen.

You see, my day actually begins with the use of the Magic Spoon.  Starting with my first cup of hot coffee with one sugar cube and a splash of cream, its cheerful reflection of the morning light awakening me for the tasks and chores that lay ahead of me.

Quite often, that special spoon was a key player in many ways for my daily routine.  Time and time again, I'd find myself reaching for it even when I wasn't cooking or in the kitchen.  Its uses innumerable, its capabilities magical.

Often alone when I had an especially out-of-reach itch on my back, the Magic Spoon would come to the rescue reaching down the length of my turtleneck with just enough extension needed to hit that sweet spot of relief that a door frame couldn't satisfy.

Around the house, as neglected housekeeping revealed necessary attention, the Magic Spoon would help out in corners that were just a bit too high, but not worth hauling a stepladder to de-cobweb.

 

or to retrieve the treasures and trash that rolled under the fridge where it's too slim for a hand's reach.

I think back to the many years in our family of six with four loud, rambunctious children who had to be called to a meal, at attention, or summoned for a family con-fab, clanging the Magic Spoon against an empty pot would loudly peal for an upcoming announcement.

But it was more than that.  It was a helper, an extension of my own hand, a friend in need, magically rendering a small task into a feeling of accomplishment time after time.  Its small thin bowl, serving as an actual screwdriver, no longer a part of the screwdriver mixing cocktail team but now serving a higher purpose in the realm of chrome plated utensils.

Its strong, long, handle, reaching for my needs whenever I can't quite make it

sometimes de-tangling my connections-- no one likes a kinked phone cord, no one.

Or to stir sleeping coals in the hearth when a chill has settled in and bright warming fire can easily be re-kindled and sparked.

and the Magic Spoon even has my back, when I get that creepy feeling of being watched -- you know the feeling.  There will be a one-eyed Peeping Tom in town, thanks to its spiraling rod of defense.

Even coming to the rescue when other dedicated tools have gone missing.

Oh, sure, there are other spoons at Cleveland Place, sterling silver spoons, serving spoons, sugar spoons, ice tea spoons, every day flatware spoons, soup spoons, even caviar spoons made of horn or mother-of-pearl, but they will never be the Magic Spoon.  

Just look at them.  They wish they were Magic Spoons, 

but they'll never measure up. 

After all, Spoons, I served with the Magic Spoon. I knew the Magic Spoon. The Magic Spoon was a friend of mine. Spoon, you're no Magic Spoon!

But it HAS to be here somewhere, right?  I know that spoons have been known to run away with a dish, but not here, not now.  So I searched -- it must simply have been mislaid.  Though the Cleveland Place kitchen is orderly, and there's a place for everything and everything's in its place, maybe, just maybe it could have been misplaced.....opening drawers reveals continued disappointment.

Alas, it's not in the third drawer which keeps things of three

 and it hasn't been whisked away

I'll call a meeting, an investigation, an inquiry -- who last used it, washed it, poked with it, scraped, tightened, stirred, tasted a sip from it, or even threatened the mischievous dog with its imposing chrome?

I demanded to know, "Was it YOU?"  Who emptied the dishwasher last? Two days went by!  Is it in a tool belt?  The pen tray?  Did someone use it as a dip-stick to check the oil level in the car?  It could be ANYWHERE by this point.  I was desperate.  At a loss.  I had a three-course luncheon to prepare for 17 people upcoming -- I raised my arms with the despair of loss

 "WHY?" 

and then his hand reached out.  

Let's call him Steve, since that's what his name is.  Steve reached out and plucked my beloved spoon off the magnet strip just under the cabinet next to the stove.  It had been here all along.  Waiting, ready, quiet, slightly out of sight.

Sometimes when we think what we need most is completely out of reach, it's really right where we need it all along; it's just like magic when it appears.