The 'Geisters

THE LODGE

The offices that Charlie Sunderland used in those days were situated in a strip mall at the south end of Etobicoke, smack between a medical centre and a pharmacy. But he made it clear to all of his clients who made the observation, that the proximity was entirely coincidental.

“I’m not going to write you a prescription. I promise you that. Because you know by now, drugs aren’t going to resolve anything. And as for the clinic? If you needed a physician, you wouldn’t be here.”

Ann’s mother lifted her bandaged right hand. Two days ago, those bandages had been applied in the emergency room at Perth County General, on top of deep, stitched-up cuts from which the doctors there had extracted three thin shards of glass. They had pulled six more from her shoulders and chest, but the bandages from those wounds were hidden under a thick sweater.

“I wouldn’t say we don’t need a physician,” she said.

Sunderland smiled a little sheepishly and looked down at his own hands. He was a tall man with very dark hair and a prominent chin, a deep tan for this time of year. He didn’t look like a physician to Ann; he wore an open-necked sweater and pale blue jeans, and he smiled too much.

But maybe that was fine. Maybe he was right.

A physician wouldn’t be able to do much for the problem at the Lake House.

“What happened to your hand?” he asked.

Ann’s mother looked down now, and Ann’s father put his hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him, and said: “The ghost did it.” And then she looked back at her hand, and her lips pressed tight together.

The ghost did it.

This was a hard thing for her to say. Of the four of them, she had held onto her skepticism the longest, edging out Philip by about a week. Until then, Ann’s mother had answered Ann’s complaints with a hug, and a trip to the closet or the basement or the bathroom with a flashlight to say: There’s nothing here.

Not now there’s not. But before—

Not ever, Ann. Imagination’s a powerful thing. But it’s not real. It’s all in our heads.

It’s all in the closet.

You just think so. But really, baby—it’s you.

Saying that was like a challenge—and after the thing had happened in Ann’s brother’s room, the thing he wouldn’t talk about, not yet, Philip tried to tell their mother so. But she wouldn’t listen. She just kept on opening doors and moving curtains aside, shining her flashlight into the dark corners of the bright new house—until she opened the hall closet, and looked into the light.

“Why do you say it was a ghost?” asked Sunderland. Outside, it had begun to snow, and as he spoke, the heating system kicked into higher gear.

“There was… a stack of light bulbs. They weren’t connected to anything—just in the closet. They were… on.”

“On?” Sunderland’s smile faltered.

She looked down at her bandaged hand, and said again: “They weren’t connected to anything. They weren’t just on—they seemed to be pulsing, showing me a pattern. When I got close enough…”

She made an exploding sound with the roof of her mouth—the kind of sound some of the boys that Ann knew would make if they were pretending to blow things up. Dr. Sunderland nodded. He had a computer on his desk, and he glanced at the screen, tapped some keys, and pushed a disk in the three-and-a-half-inch drive.

“We both saw it,” said Ann’s father.

“But you had the presence of mind to get a fire extinguisher,” she said to him.

“You were bleeding.”

“You were right there,” she said. “Thank God.”

Sunderland left them to it, and turned his attention to the computer. He typed something. Ann met Philip’s eye, who was sitting in an old plastic-covered chair by the window. He pursed his lips and nodded with resignation, jammed his fists farther into the pockets of his fleece vest.

“Please excuse me,” said Sunderland. “I’m opening a file for you. That way, we’ll have everything in one place.”

“I thought you had a file already,” said their father.

On the desk beside Sunderland was an old school notebook that Ann had half-filled with what she could remember about the incidents. She had also made some drawings and they were in there too. Philip had used his own computer, and his homework was in a stack of printouts underneath the notebook. Underneath that, a yellow questionnaire that Ann’s mother and father had filled out, and signed.

Sunderland pressed a key and the drive started to write. It made a squonking noise, Ann thought.

Squonk squonk.

He turned his attention to the notes, picking them up and holding them, like a restaurant menu.

“These are great,” he said. “Ann, Philip—you’ve done a great job setting things down. I’m really impressed with you.”

Ann nodded you’re welcome. Philip regarded Dr. Sunderland, but didn’t say anything.

“What’s your prognosis, then?” asked their father.

He shook his head. “Prognosis. That’s a doctor’s word. We’re not dealing with a medical situation, Mr. LeSage. Aside, I mean, from the injuries you sustained from the electro-kinetic event last week, Mrs. LeSage. We’re dealing with something more… complex.”

“So you can’t fix this?” said Ann’s mother.

Dr. Sunderland bent his head and regarded her, as though over the top of invisible glasses.

“We can learn,” he said, “about the phenomenon.” He gestured to the bandaged hands. “Make you safer.”

Ann’s mother was about to say something, but stopped at the touch on her hand. “That’s what we want,” said her father. If it weren’t for him, Ann thought they all would have walked out right then and there.

If it had been up to their mother, they wouldn’t have come in the first place.

Their mother had been the last of them to shed her skepticism, but that only became clear after the incident with the lights. Until then, it seemed as though both parents were on the same page when it came to understanding the presence that their children described. When Ann’s mother took the flashlight into the laundry room, Ann’s father would hang back, nodding in tacit agreement that yes, the only thing to fear is fear. He was the one who ordered the parental control box for the cable TV service, after they agreed that Ann was just scaring herself. Their father gave no sign that he understood the things that were happening in the Lake House to be anything other than a child’s overactive imagination.

It was, as it turned out, cover. After he had emptied the kitchen fire extinguisher into the closet—after he had gotten their mom home, stitched up and swaddled in bandages—he’d sat them down in a family meeting to explain some things. It was a fiercely cold night, and on other nights like this they might have lit a fire; sitting around the fireplace in the high-ceilinged living room was almost to the point of a religious ceremony with the LeSages. But their dad said no.

“We’ll turn up the furnace if you’re cold. I don’t want to start anything. Now sit down,” he said. “I have a confession to make.”

Their father, as it turned out, had not been nearly as skeptical as he’d made himself out to be. Which, he admitted, was another way of saying that he had lied to them—kept things from them. He hoped that they would forgive him.

“I’ve seen this thing too,” he said. “Bottom line. Three months ago.”

What had he seen? Ann wanted to know, and demanded details. Their dad seemed flustered at the request, and tried to avoid answering. But their mom said: “No, I want to hear this too. What did you see?”

He clamped his hands together and sat very still. He laughed a bit, and said he felt like he was telling a ghost story but that he didn’t want to frighten anybody more than they already were.

“Don’t worry about that, dad,” said Philip. “That ship’s sailed.”

And their dad laughed, and unfurled his hands, and started into it.

“It was down by the water’s edge,” he said. “Near the boathouse. Very early in the morning.. We’d had a movie night the night before.”

“So, Sunday,” said Ann.

“I got up before everybody and took my coffee out to the lake.” In fact, he had taken his coffee and a pack of cigarettes outside. But that was one of the things that he left out of the story, then.

“I remember that it was very still out. The mist was on the water. The first thing I heard was some splashing.”

“Under the dock?” Ann had been caught by that one more than once—what seemed like a fish caught under the floating part of the dock, splashing and twisting and pushing the whole structure out of the water and dropping it again. But her father shook his head.

“No, it was pretty clear that the splash came from the lake. First a big one, like a fish jumping out. Then they became rhythmic. I could see where it was coming from—the lake mist was swirling and spreading about a hundred feet off the dock, maybe further. It looked like someone swimming, but not well—it was like they were maybe in trouble. I called out and asked, and I heard something—it was like a cry for help—it sounded like a woman.

“I kind of panicked. If it were earlier in the year, the boat would have been in the water and I’d have been able to make it out there to pull her out. But we’d put the boat away. And it was pretty far out. So I put down my coffee cup—” and he stubbed out his cigarette under his boot “—and I pulled off my shirt and boots and jeans.”

“So you were going to swim out to her? In October?” asked their mother.

“Did you at least take the life ring off the dock?” asked Philip.

“I did that, yes. And yes, I was going to try and swim out there and help her. What else was I going to do?”

“The lake’s freezing this time of year. You’d give yourself a heart attack.”

“Yeah.” He went quiet for a moment. “I didn’t end up going in the water. Before I got my pants off my ankles, the swimmer had come closer. I thought maybe I could just throw that ring. But by the time she got close enough… well.”

The newest log burning in the fire place cracked and popped twice before he continued.

“There was no she. No swimmer. It was just the water. Splashing and swirling by itself.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Philip.

Their father shut up again. There was no good answer for the question.

Finally he said: “I’ve got in touch with somebody. I’m told he can help.”

They wound up staying at Dr. Sunderland’s offices until late that night. Most of the time Ann spent waiting around.

Dr. Sunderland explained it: “We’re going to do individual interviews and tests. So we’ve got a room for you kids to hang out in while you’re waiting.”

The room was off a long hallway in back of the main office. There were no windows, but it was nice enough. There was a couch and a chair and a TV, a little table with a pitcher of ice water and cups to one side—a coffee table in the middle. There was nothing to read, Philip noted.

“You won’t be here that long,” said Dr. Sunderland as he shut the door.

“This is bullshit,” said Philip.

“Bullshit,” agreed Ann, and giggled.

Philip got up and opened the door, looked up and down the hall.

“Is the coast clear?”

“The coast is clear.”

“Are we going to escape?”

“We’ll make a break for it at shift change. Hotwire the minivan. Hit the border by sundown.”

Ann giggled, and Philip let the door close, fell back on the couch beside her. They looked at the blank TV screen, and Ann found the remote control on the arm of the couch. When she turned on the set, the screen went snowy.

“No cable,” she said, and Philip nodded.

“Ghost-busting doesn’t pay like it used to.”

Ann punched him in the arm and clicked up three channels before shutting the set off. Philip looked at his watch. Outside the room, they heard footsteps, but they didn’t stop and no one opened the door. The light from the fluorescent fixture overhead flickered, made everything seem a little dead.

“I’m scared,” said Philip.

It was the first time he had admitted that, and looking at him, eyes straight ahead, Ann thought he was joking. But he wasn’t, and told her not to laugh.

“I don’t like this place,” he said. “I don’t think Sunderland’s a good person.”

“What do you mean?”

Philip sat up. He frowned, opened his mouth like he was going to say, then stopped. “I think he’s going to try to talk to us by ourselves.”

“That’s what he said he was going to do.”

“He’s not a real doctor. He said so himself.”

Ann nodded. “So?”

Philip looked right at her. “When he talks to you,” he said, “promise me something.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t let him make you take your clothes off.”

“Are you blushing?”

Philip was blushing. He looked away. “Just promise me. He might say it’s part of the tests he’s got to do. He might say something else. But he’s got no business taking your clothes off. So don’t do it.”

“Okay,” she said. “I promise.”

“Thanks.”

“Is that what you’re scared of?”

“Maybe.” He bit his thumbnail. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“Well I’m scared too,” said Ann, and took her brother’s hand. The thumb tip was still damp with spit. “But not of that.”

“I just don’t like him. That’s all.”

They sat waiting for a half an hour by Philip’s watch, before the door cracked open and Dr. Sunderland peeked in. Ann got up, but he shook his head. “You stay here,” he said. “Philip, it’s your turn.”

“How long will it be?” she asked.

“Not long. Why don’t you watch television?”

“It doesn’t work,” said Philip. “No cable.”

Dr. Sunderland frowned. “What? Sure we do. Hold on a second.” He went over to the TV, reached around behind, jiggled something, and turned it on. A music video came up. “Hm. Sir Mix-a-Lot.” He looked at Ann. “Your kind of thing?”

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

“Well,” he said, pointing to the remote, “there are plenty of channels to choose from. Take your pick.”

And with that, he and Philip left Ann alone in the room. She started to flip channels.

“Mr. Spock had to have his brain put back in,” she said. “Dr. McCoy didn’t know what he was doing, but Mr. Spock talked him through it.”

Dr. Sunderland grinned and nodded. They had talked about the music videos and the cooking show and now they were on to the Star Trek show.

“That was quite an episode,” he said.

“It was pretty stupid.”

“It wasn’t one of their finest,” he said. “I haven’t seen the old series in years. When I think about it, I prefer Mr. Data to Mr. Spock.”

“They’re both the same. Basically.”

“Basically. That’s true. Each is very alone, even in a crowd. Do you watch a lot of Star Trek?”

“My brother does. So sometimes I do too. Where’s my brother?”

The two of them were alone in the little waiting room. Dr. Sunderland had returned with a clipboard. He was wearing a deep blue fleece jacket, and he’d brought a blanket for Ann, along with her coat.

“He’s with your parents,” he said. His breath made frosty clouds over his chin. “We’ll go see them in a minute.”

Ann pulled her coat tight around her. “Soon,” she said.

“I promise.” Dr. Sunderland made a note on his clip board. “Did you enjoy the news any better?”

“It was all about the war,” said Ann. “What does SCUD stand for?”

“I don’t really know. We can check later. But you didn’t answer my question. You were watching the news for a long time. Did you enjoy it?”

“No.”

“Well I guess nobody really enjoys the news. Was there something about it that interested you?”

“How do you know I was watching the news so much?” Ann looked around. “Is there a camera in here?”

“Yes.”

Ann shivered and drew her knees up to her chest. “And you’ve been watching us the whole time?”

He didn’t answer.

“Is Philip in trouble?”

He shook his head. “Philip is a good boy,” he said. “A good brother. He gave you excellent advice. Do you worry about him?”

“I worry about everybody.”

“Because of the poltergeist?”

“Is that what it is?”

“It’s what your brother called it. In his notes he used the word, and when we spoke just now, he said that’s what he thought was going on. Is it okay for me to call it a poltergeist?”

“If it’s a poltergeist,” said Ann, “that makes it my fault. Philip says poltergeists are made by little girls.”

“No one’s saying anything is your fault. Should I call it something else?”

“Poltergeist is fine, I guess.”

“Okay. Tell me, Ann. What does the poltergeist look like?”

“It doesn’t look like anything.”

“That’s what you wrote in your journal. but everything looks like something.” He put the clipboard down on the coffee table. There was a yellow tablet of paper on it, Ann saw, filled with messy writing. “If you could imagine what it looked like, how would you describe it?”

“A bug.”

“You said that very quickly. Are you sure?”

She closed her eyes and made a show of thinking about it.

“A big bug.”

“So like a spider?”

“Spiders aren’t bugs. They’re—” she shut her eyes tighter and it came to her “—arachnids. Like scorpions.”

“You’re right.” He patted her shoulder. “So it’s an insect?”

“Sure.”

“Would you rather we called it that?”

“The Insect,” she said, and nodded. “Can I go see my family now?”

“Soon,” said Dr. Sunderland. “But first—” he reached over and picked up the water jug “—can you remember what the Insect was doing when this happened?”

The jug had been full, but nothing came out when he tilted it. The water inside was frozen solid.

The video cameras told it better than Ann could—and later, in her new bedroom at the lodge, she’d wonder if things might have turned out differently if she’d been more forthcoming.

There were two cameras. One up near the ceiling behind the TV; the other, over the door with a view of the TV. They watched the tapes back in Dr. Sunderland’s office, on a big TV. First one, then the other.

They showed enough, by themselves, to make the decision easy.

“Three definite manifestations,” said Dr. Sunderland. “At the fifty-seven minute mark, the subject—that’s you Ann—huddled down in the corner. The temperature dropped six degrees according to the thermostat. At fifty-seven fourteen, the channel changed on the TV. Ann, you didn’t move.”

Ann shrugged. What could she say? She was sitting still.

“Did you even notice the temperature change?” asked her father. “It getting colder, I mean?”

“Sure,” said Ann, but she knew that was a lie. “That’s why I scrunched up.”

He nodded, and she could tell by the sad expression on his face he knew it was a lie too.

“And finally at sixty-two oh three,” said Dr. Sunderland.

They’d watched that part twice on each tape to make sure. The event wasn’t very much, Ann thought. But it was enough.

There was Ann, curled up on the couch, watching the NewsWorld channel. They were talking about the war, and showing pictures of what missiles looked like when they shot up into the night sky in that part of the world. Ann rubbed her nose with the palm of her hand then jammed the hand back into her armpit for warmth.

The room darkened for an instant, as though the light had shorted out. Or something had moved in front of it. When the light came back, the coffee table was half a metre closer to the couch than it had been.

“It’s not so dark you can’t see,” said Ann’s father. “But I can’t make out what happened there. Can we see it move?”

Using a wheel on the remote control, Dr. Sunderland tracked back and forth on the ceiling camera, and the table jumped back and forth as he did so.

“It did move,” said Ann’s mother. She looked at her bandages almost wonderingly—as though seeing them there for the first time.

“Yeah,” said her father. “It did. I didn’t think these things would be so easy to call up. Right there.”

Dr. Sunderland froze the frame. “You thought you’d have to convince me,” he said with a sympathetic smile. “Because you were sure this… phenomenon… would only manifest at home, that it would have the good sense to keep hidden here.”

Her father gave a small laugh. “That’s about right. Sorry.”

“Why apologize?” said Dr. Sunderland. “Most of the time, when people worry about that, they’re right to. Because most of the time, they’re not dealing with anything real. Just their own overheated imaginations.”

“But this isn’t imagination.” Their mother folded her bandaged hands in her lap and looked up. Her eyes were wide, and frightened. Later, she would identify this moment as the point where the solidity of what was happening to the family sunk in. Broken glass was nothing, she’d say, compared to the proof of videotape.

“No,” said Dr. Sunderland. “This is real. And as you’ve already learned—” he indicated the bandages with the remote control “—it can be extremely dangerous.”

“So what’s next?”

Dr. Sunderland didn’t speak. He reached over to a book case behind his desk, and pulled out a videotape. It was homemade, but it had one word on its label.

The Lodge.

He swapped tapes in the VCR, and hit Play on the remote.

“This isn’t like the tape said,” said Ann.

“Well it’s winter,” said Philip.

“And how.”

They were standing at the top of a long dock, on a lake much smaller than the Lake House’s. And it was winter all right. They were far north and the lake was solid. Ice fishing huts huddled on it in a lonely village.

There was more snow than Ann had seen before. It smothered the branches of the trees. Deep paths the width of a shovel snaked through it like trenches. The cloud was thick and the hour late, and what sun was left made the snow the colour of a wound.

“I know what you mean,” said Philip, and took Ann’s mittened hand in his own, gave it a squeeze. “It’s not just winter. The video totally oversold this place.”

“I don’t like my room. There’s nothing in it.”

“I think that’s the idea. So you don’t… you know, start throwing shit around.”

“Don’t swear.” She looked at Philip with wide eyes, and waggled her other mitten at him, then said in a spooky sing-song: “The Insect doesn’t like swearing!”

Philip smiled and made a little puff of breath out of his nose and looked at her sidelong as she cracked up at her own joke. But she knew he didn’t think it was funny because he let go of her hand.

“Look,” he said, pointing back up the hill to the Lodge. “The innkeeper’s waving at us to come up.”

Ann waved back. “We better go,” she said.

Standing on the long porch in his heavy blue parka, lobster-handed mittens, Dr. Sunderland—the innkeepah as Philip had taken to calling him—grinned and waved again, and headed back inside.

“It’s going to be okay,” said Philip. “It’s two weeks. We’ll all be here. And then—”

Then the Insect will be gone. Ann nodded. That was what Dr. Sunderland had said back at his clinic.

“Ann will undergo a form of behavioural conditioning. Nothing unpleasant. It will be really easy; most of it, she won’t even be aware of—because it’s not conditioning for her. It’s for the Insect. You can all stay and watch over her—in fact, that’s an important part of the process. It will last about two weeks.”

“And then?” asked her mother and Dr. Sunderland leaned back in his chair, folded his hands on his belly, as though he had already finished the job.

“Then the Insect will be gone.”