Children Lost on The Darkest Of Nights: The Legend of Peg Powler - Chapter 3

Children Lost on The Darkest Of Nights:

The Legend of Peg Powler

(A Sewing Box Mystery)

Chapter 1: Friday, November 1, 1991, 1:51 am

Chapter 2: Saturday October 29, 2011, 11:37 am

     Chapter 3: Sunday October 30, 2011, 10:30 am

     When they arrived at the nursing home, Missy was amazed to see that the same lady who had checked them in the last time they’d visited was still manning the receptionist desk in the rather opulent lobby.  Missy was also pretty sure Beatrice was sporting the same Chanel knock-off the woman had been wearing some eight months previous.  But then, thought Missy, it's a classic look, one that certainly bears repeating.

     Terri’s husband, whom Grandma Jean used to refer to as 'the milk dud', had left his wife well-off – enough so she could afford to live in one of the finest assisted living facilities in the tri-state area.  It reminded Missy more of a hotel than an old folk’s home.  After a perfunctory exchange with the tightly-wired woman seated behind the cherry wood table, Missy and Jeanette were instructed to take a seat on one of the finely appointed couches.  Sinking into the rich leather, Missy wondered if there was any chance she could give up her tiny apartment and park her ass on the couch she was seated on for the rest of her life.  

     As they waited for Terri to appear, Jeanette busied herself searching through her signature giant handbag.  Missy’s opinion regarding exactly how ugly and unfashionable the thing was had not changed, though, in light of their experiences during their last visit to St. Petersburg and the number of times that bag had saved the day, she had a new respect for it.

     “What are you looking for?”

     “That kitchen witch.  Remember?  Last time we were here I meant to give it to her.  I thought she might like something that used to belong to Mom.”  Searching a lower, outside pocket, Jeanette produced the desired gift. “Here it is.”  The small doll was not anything Missy would want to hang in her kitchen.  Its features formed a sour scowl, its dress and cap made of a dingy blue fabric which struck Missy as worn and a tad dirty.  In other words, this witch didn’t impress Missy as the type to wish anyone well or save anyone’s cookies from burning, let alone improve someone’s kitchen décor.

     “What makes you think she’s going to want that?”

     Jeanette shrugged.  “It belonged to your grandmother.  I’m sure Terri will appreciate something to remember her by.”  

     From a hallway behind them welled a voice that did not match the tiny, familiar form from which it sprang, “Well, I’ll be drunken sailor on a date with a mermaid!  Look at the two of you!”  Terri swept into the lobby full steam ahead.  The pint-sized, energetic senior was dressed in the cutest little green painter’s smock, a pair of black, tight-fitting Capri pants, and a pair of black flats; something more befitting a grade-schooler than someone her age.  For Missy, the outfit brought to mind what people in the 1950s thought an artist should wear in order to paint – all that was missing was the beret.  Terri wasted no time getting hugs from both women.  “You’ll have to forgive the way I look; I’m taking an oil painting class with this kid from the U of M.  He’s kind of a stick in the mud, but dang cute. Wears too much of that Axe body spray stuff, but, hey, at my age and where I’m living?  Eye candy is eye candy.”

     A solemn “Shhhh” came from the direction of the concierge desk.  Terri’s eyes lit aflame. “Oh, shush yourself, Beatrice.  I pay my own way here.  If I want to talk to these gals, what’s it to you?”

     Beatrice pointed to a tiny tent card, sitting to her right on the Duncan Phyfe-style table.  ‘Please limit personal conversations in the lobby area.’  The addition of a miniscule ‘Thank you.’ at the bottom of the card did little to lessen its rather austere tone.  Terri dismissed Beatrice with a quiet ‘hmph’ before leading the ladies into one of the visitor rooms which lined the perimeter of the lobby.  Missy took a seat on the far end of the couch. The room, with its wall facing the lobby made of smoked glass, reminded her of the conference rooms at the office where she worked, the major difference being comfort.

     Terri threw herself into an oversized club chair on the other side of the room and picked right up where she’d left off, extolling the physical virtues and vices of her oil painting instructor.  “…the boy has an actual dimple in his chin, just like Kirk Douglas.  And his dark hair sets off his eyes… oh, if only I was 40 or 50 years younger, I’d take a run at… but hey, you don’t want to hear that, do you?  Not from an old lady like me.  How about you?  You gals got some fine fellas in your lives yet?”

     Missy gritted her teeth and slowly craned her face around to catch her aunt’s eyes. Why did everyone of a certain age feel the need to inquire about her relationship status?  Jeanette ignored her niece and, producing the poem from her cavernous purse with ease, handed the paper to Terri.  “Actually, this is what we’d like to discuss.  Look it over and see if it rings a bell.”  

     The older woman’s eyes scanned the document quickly before she actually began to read the poem.  She stopped short, folded the paper and handed it back to Jeanette.  When she spoke, her demeanor had become much more reserved. “Yep.  I remember.  Peg Powler. You two aren’t thinking about going back to St. Petersburg again, are you?”

     The question surprised both women.  First off, that Terri had tied the poem immediately to St. Petersburg, and secondly, that she cared enough to ask.  Jeanette told her outright, “We are.  But before we do, we were hoping you might be able to tell us a little more about this poem and the dreams my mother might have been having related to it.”

     Terri leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms across her chest, and shaking her head.  “I don’t think anything good could come of you going back there.  Especially regarding…” she wagged a pointed finger in the direction of the poem, still held in Jeanette’s hand.  “But then,” she said, brightening, “who am I to tell you what to do, huh?  Okay, I do remember your mother showing me that poem, although it came to her a few years later, long after she first started dreaming about this Peg Powler thing.  It was all very… monster movie, I guess.  I mean, her dreams involved these floating dolls with bluish skin being held in a giant mouth with pointed, sharp teeth.”  As she continued to speak, the old woman warmed to her recollections and began to relax into her chair once more.  

     “And then there was something chasing her along the bank of a river.  For the longest time she didn’t know who it was.   She always thought it was going to be some hideous monster, but it turned out to be a young woman wearing a pale, cornflower blue dress.  Weird, the little things you remember, huh?  But then, that’s what we talked about… a lot.  Your mom?  She was absolutely plagued by dreams… crazy dreams.  That’s why I thought she might have a brain tumor.  I told her to get it checked out, but she wouldn’t.  She was stubborn that way.  Sweet, but stubborn.  She was a good friend.”

     The older woman seemed to have lost her way, mired in thought; she stared off into some unfathomable distance.  Missy looked to Jeanette before verbally prodding Terri back to the subject at hand. “I’m glad the two of you were so close.  We really appreciate you sharing what you remember.  Do you remember anything more about the young woman in the dreams?”

     Terri let out a short laugh.  “Oh, sorry.  Did I drift off?  I do that now. Yes, yes, I remember more.  Jean said she was a pretty little thing, like something right out of an old copy of Better Homes and Gardens.  And that she looked so sad.  Sad, because she was looking for something… that’s what your mother thought.  Jean would follow her as the woman walked up and down the river bank with this look of absolute anguish on her face.”  

     Terri shook herself from the memory, and then continued.  “That same woman also appeared in a different series of dreams.  Jean would see her laying in the middle of a grassy field, surrounded by people, your mother being one of them.  There was a man, too.  Like a preacher, I guess, standing over the woman, pointing at her and yelling.  Jean would try to intervene, but every time she did, the circle of people would close in on her and then… they would all disappear, or the dream would end… something like that.”  Terri stared at the floor, not speaking for a time.  Then she looked at Jeanette and Missy and asked, “Am I being helpful?  Is any of this of help to you?”  

     “Of course it is,” Jeanette enthused.  “Thank you.  I can’t believe that you remember so much and in such detail.”

     “I do.” Terri smiled wistfully.  “I do because the year your mother started having dreams about… that poem?  That was the year of our second fire.  My first house?  It burned back in 1980.  We built a new one on the same lot.  Ten years later, almost to the day, our second house caught fire.  If it hadn’t a-been for the neighbor across the alley, we surely would have lost it, along with our lives.  We were dead asleep when the fire broke out.  Both times, actually.  They never figured out what started either fire, but the insurance paid out both times, thank God.  Eh,” she squeaked, her eyes misting, “I try not to think about it.”

     Jeanette reached over and placed a hand on Terri’s knee.  “I’m sorry.  We didn’t mean to bring up any… unpleasantness.”

    Terri shooed her away.  “Oh, it’s nothing.  It’s good to remember.  Keeps the cobwebs at bay.”  She pulled a single tissue from a box on the end table beside her.  Dabbing the corners of her eyes, she rallied her spirits. “Hey, you know what?  I don’t want to keep that boy from the U of M waiting too long.  He gets awfully cranky if he has to explain things more than once.”  She rose, walking over to each woman in order to give them a hug. “Thank you for the visit.  And good luck in St. Petersburg.”  

     She was about to walk out of the room, when Jeanette called out to her, “Wait-a-minute, wait-a-minute… don’t go yet.  I have something for you.”  She scooped the kitchen witch from her bag. “I hope this doesn’t upset you more, but this is something that belonged to Jean, and I thought you might like it, as a keepsake.”  Expectantly, Jeanette held the doll out for the older woman to take.  Terri turned, smiling, looking into Jeanette’s eyes, her hands outstretched to receive the gift, and appeared all prepared to say ‘thank you.’  She took hold of the doll, saw what it was and… her face twisted into a horrible grimace.  She dropped the doll, as if it was some foul thing.  It hit the corner of the coffee table before falling to the floor. Missy scrambled to retrieve it.  As she stood back up, she could see, from the expression on Terri’s face that the woman had not dropped the doll by accident.  Her neck was stiff, her eyes wide, her face pulled back in… fear?  Revulsion?  Missy wasn’t sure.  

     Terri looked from Jeanette to Missy, before she pointed at the kitchen witch and spit, “How dare you!”  Missy felt herself shrink.  What the hell?  “What do you mean bringing me this?” the old woman hissed.  She lunged forward, grabbing the doll from Missy’s grasp before flinging it against the far wall of the room.  “How could you?”  She searched Jeanette and Missy’s faces for an answer.  Finding none, her face went blank.  “You don’t know, do you. You have no idea.”

     Finally, Jeanette spoke.  “About what?  What did we do?”

     The woman began looking about the floor, as if the answers lay there.  She shook her head.  “I can’t.  I can’t go through all that again.  Where did you even get such a thing?  I just… I can’t believe it.”  Still shaking her head in miscomprehension, she moved toward the door, as if lost in a fog.  In the doorway, she turned around and spoke, “And if I were you, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near St. Petersburg.  You’re not going to like what you find there.  And I won’t have you bringing any of it back here.  You…” she pointed a stern finger at both women “… you both leave me the hell alone.”  She again locked eyes with both women, as if daring either of them to not take her seriously, before lurching out of the room.

     In her wake, the room suddenly felt remarkably cooler.  It was certainly quieter.

     “What the hell was that all about?” asked Missy.

     But before her aunt could answer, Beatrice appeared in the doorway of the room.  Behind the prim women stood, what looked to be a security guard of sorts.  “I think you two should… ahem… go.”  She stood aside to indicate that they should pass.  In a daze, kitchen witch still in hand, Missy complied.  Jeanette grabbed her giant handbag and followed suit.  

     They walked back to the car in silence, but once inside, they both began speaking at once.

     “What the hell was that all about?”

     “She went ape shit, absolutely ape shit.”

     “That was crazy”

     “Weird… just weird.”

     After a moment of silence, Jeanette began to laugh.

     “What’s so funny?”  

     Jeanette fit the key into the ignition and turned it. “Well, I’ve been 86’d outta many a bar, hon, but this is the very first nursing home I’ve gotten the boot from.”  Putting her car into gear, she continued, “I don’t know what’s waiting for us in St. Petersburg, but now?  Now, I gotta find out.”

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