Chapter Thirty

chapter thirty

August 10, 1931

Sparrow Crest

Brandenburg, Vermont

Today I saw it for the first time: Sparrow Crest. Our new home.

Will drove us there, little Margaret on my lap, chatting, pointing at and naming the sights along the way: house, cow, horse, car, man, lady, dog, tree. She’s such a clever girl and has become quite the talker, knows a dozen words and uses them again and again. Will says she is very advanced for her age.

Everything is such a delight to her! And to Will and me, now that we see the world through her eyes.

She giggled with delight at each cow.

“And what noise does a cow make?” I asked. “Does a cow say moo?”

“Moo!” she cried. “Moo, moo, moo!”

Will was nervous, fidgety as a little boy—he so wanted me to be pleased with the house. He wanted it to be everything I’d hoped and dreamed for.

We drove through town, passing the general store, the church, the post office, the little schoolhouse.

I am Mrs. Monroe, and my family and I live here in Brandenburg now, I told myself as I took it all in, trying to make it real, to make it sink in. I imagined us all walking through the doors of the church on Sundays, buying bread at the store, introducing ourselves to our new neighbors, Margaret one day being old enough to go to school.

When we turned up the road to the house, Will told me to close my eyes.

“Keep them closed and no peeking, darling wife,” he said. “You too, little sparrow,” he added, and Maggie covered her eyes with her hands as I did, giggling. She started counting, the way she did when we all played hide-and-seek. Only she hadn’t quite learned to count and just listed the numbers she knew: “One, four, six, one.”

He drove another minute, then stopped the car. “Keep them closed,” he instructed. He came around and opened our door. I stumbled out, holding Maggie in my arms, Will guiding me.

“Okay, open your eyes.”

I gasped. Will, I’m sure, took it as a gasp of awe and delight. But really, it was fear. I sucked air into my chest, which felt as if it was being crushed by a giant fist. I held Maggie tightly in my arms, and we gazed upon Sparrow Crest. It was so much more massive than I had imagined, like a great stone fortress. It truly was like the castle I had dreamed of living in when I was a little girl. The front door was heavy wood with a rounded top. The windows were arched with leaded glass. Two stories high with an attic, the roof had steep peaks and was covered in gray slate shingles. There was a large half-round window in the attic at the very front of the house.

The whole building seemed alive to me; it felt as though it was a part of the landscape, as if it had risen up right out of the rocky soil. It fit the backdrop of trees on the hill behind it perfectly. The windows and door looked like a fierce face under the steeply angled rooftop.

The front door stood open, a mouth waiting to gobble us up.

“Oh, Will,” I said, taking a step back away from it, wanting to get back in the car and drive as far away from this place as we could.

But it was too late. We had nowhere else to go. This was our home now.

Will took Maggie from me, swooped her though the air as if she were flying. “And what do you think of your new house, little sparrow?”

She laughed with delight and pointed. “House,” she said.

“Your house,” he told her. “Sparrow Crest. Shall we go inside?”

I followed him on shaky legs.

A work crew was inside, as well as the movers, who had come ahead of us, trucks loaded with our furniture and all of our belongings in baskets and boxes. All the men scuttled to and fro like ants.

Will introduced me to the foreman, Mr. Galletti. He was a broad-shouldered man with dark hair and a thick, bushy mustache. “A true pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Monroe,” he said.

The front hall was magnificent—heavy, dark wood-paneled walls, a stone floor, built-in benches to sit on while we take off boots and coats. Off to the right, a large living room with a stone fireplace. There was a mason pointing the cement between the stones with a tiny trowel. He tipped his hat to me. Beyond the living room, a dining room connected by a hall to the kitchen. Oh, the kitchen! It’s enormous.

“You could cook a feast every night!” Will said. There were plenty of deep wooden cupboards and a large pantry. A huge soapstone sink. The newest and fanciest gas stove.

“It’s big enough to get lost in,” I told him.

“And look,” he said, showing me the kitchen door, divided into two halves. “It’s called a Dutch door. You can open just the top if you’d like to let the breeze in. Or, latch it together and open the whole thing at once.”

He opened the door, stepped aside.

“Go see,” he said, but I stood frozen. A breeze blew in through the open door, giving me a chill, making the hairs on my arms stand on end. I rubbed at them.

At last, I willed myself forward and stepped out onto the patio, shuffling my feet like a sleepwalker.

The pool was nothing like what I remembered, and yet so familiar. It was so much larger, a great rectangular pond. The water was as black as ever, perhaps more so. And there was the familiar smell: metallic tinged with rotten egg. The taste got caught in the back of my throat. I tried not to gag on it.

“It’s so much bigger,” I said. “We could sail a boat in it.”

Will laughed. “Not quite large enough for that, but plenty large enough for proper swimming.”

I walked around it, maintaining a safe distance between myself and the edge. Neat blocks of granite lined the top; the slate of the patio was laid up in a neat bed of mortar (only half of the patio was finished, the rest a sandbox and stacks of stone). At the far end was a little stone-lined canal that led across the yard, all the way to the stream. I could hear it running.

We stood, looking at the pool. I was mesmerized, watching our reflections in it—the three of us, the house and hills behind us, the clouds overhead. The wind blew, rippling the water, making everything waver as if none of it were real.

Maggie squirmed in Will’s arms, and he set her down. She got too close to the edge, and I swooped her up in my arms, kissed her soft dark hair, whispered low, “This is where you came from. Where it all began.” And it’s the water keeping you alive, I thought.

We have to be here, I told myself. I would have to find a way to put my fears in a box and put on my best, brave face. For Maggie. It was all for Maggie. I kissed her again and again. She smelled like sweet apples and warm milk. Like all that was good in the world.

Inside, one of the men hammered. One said something to another, and they laughed.

The water in the stone-lined canal sounded like it was laughing, too.

A mocking little laugh.

“We still have the whole upstairs to tour,” Will said. “And there’s the attic. That’s where I thought we’d put your sewing room.”

“You never said anything about a sewing room.” I felt my spirits brighten.

“I wanted it to be a surprise! You can set up under that big window at the front of the house.” He was bouncing up onto the balls of his feet, so excited.

It was going to be all right,I told myself. We are going to be happy here.

I followed him back in through the kitchen door, holding Maggie in my arms. “What do you think, little sparrow? Isn’t it magnificent? Shall we go up and see your bedroom? I hear Daddy’s had it painted a lovely yellow.”

Maggie pointed out the open door, back at the pool. “Lady,” she said. My arms tightened around her, my whole body going rigid.

I turned slowly, looked back at the dark surface of the water, glanced around the patio, out at the edges of the yard.

“There’s no one there, my love,” I said, my throat tight, heart beating so fast and hard I was sure it would burst.

“Lady,” she said again, smiling, giggling.

“What’s she saying?” Will called from up ahead in the hall.

“Nothing,” I called back, my voice high and strange.

“Lady!” Maggie said, the word mixed in with delighted laughter as she pointed at the pool. “Lady! Lady! Lady!”

August 17, 1931

My nerves are a mess. I’m not sleeping. Can hardly eat.

I tell Will it’s the construction: the constant banging and yelling and sawing. The men tromping with their big boots, stinking of sweat and cigarettes and last night’s rum. The sawdust and plaster dust that seems to cover every surface of the house. The fact that I can’t find anything—my favorite shoes, our cast-iron frying pan. Our lives are still packed away in boxes, and we are only taking out what few things we absolutely need until the house is finished. The last thing we want to do is add to the chaos.

But the truth is, living at the building site is not what’s put me on edge.

It’s the pool. I feel like I spend all my energy each day trying to avoid it, trying not to look. It’s a childish game I play: If I can’t see you, you’re not there. It’s foolish, really. What am I afraid of?

“It’s a hot day,” Will says. “You should swim. I’ll watch Maggie.”

“Perhaps.”

“You haven’t been in the pool at all yet.”

“I’ve been so busy with unpacking and setting up house. Not to mention chasing Maggie around and trying to keep her from being underfoot—or crushed by a ladder or scaffolding.”

I’m not the only one unsettled by the pool. The workmen avoid it, too. I see them looking at it, speaking to each other in low voices. They all eye the pool like it’s full of poison.

When I go into town, I feel the people looking at me, judging me. My clothes are too fine. Our car is too nice. I am an outsider here. They smile and are polite, but I hear them whisper when my back is turned. That’s her. The one from the springs. Some look at me with fear. Others, with pity. Like I’m a doomed woman.

When I went to church last Sunday, a young woman asked me about the springs. “I heard your husband had a swimming pool built from the springs.”

I smiled. “Yes, it’s quite lovely. Perfect for these hot summer days.”

Her face grew pale, she moved closer to me, whispered, “But don’t you know? That water’s cursed.”

The day before yesterday, a tramp showed up at the front door of Sparrow Crest looking for work and a meal. He was dusty and thin but had a kind face. Will convinced Galletti to try him out. I invited him into the kitchen and made him a sandwich and a cup of coffee. “Can’t work on an empty stomach,” I said. Blanchard was his name. He was terribly polite.

“Thank you kindly, ma’am. Beautiful house you have here, ma’am.” He sat down at the table after I invited him to do so, took off his hat, said grace, and ate. “I do believe that meeting you good people means my luck is turning,” he said with a smile. “And you won’t be sorry you took a chance on me. I’m a hard worker. I’ve laid railroad tracks all over New England. Helped build stone houses on the coast of Maine. Built boats down in Connecticut. I’m good with my hands, see.” He held up his hands, which were calloused, weathered, his fingers stained yellow from cigarettes.

After lunch, Galletti sent him outside to finish the stonework around the pool—a job none of the other men would take. Blanchard went to work mixing mortar in the wheelbarrow and laying stones. Not twenty minutes later, he was back in the house, pale as could be, telling Galletti that he quit. The foreman was outraged. “These are nice people! They took you in. They fed you. And now you’re leaving without even putting in an hour’s work? It’s a disgrace.”

“The pool,” Blanchard said.

“What about it?”

“I saw—”

“What?” Galletti barked.

“I can’t—I’m sorry.” And Blanchard left the house, practically running to the front door. I watched him out the window. He jogged down the driveway, looking back over his shoulder like he expected someone might be chasing him.

August 21, 1931

This evening, after eight o’clock, I was upstairs in Maggie’s room. I’d just put her to bed and was sitting in the rocking chair, holding the book I’d been reading her, when I heard the commotion outside. Men yelling out by the pool. The men have been working late each day, and weekends, too. Will’s pushing them to get back on schedule, says there will be extra money for all of them if they finish early.

I went downstairs, out the kitchen door.

“What’s happened?” I asked Will.

“One of the men fell in,” he told me. “Galletti got him out. Everything’s fine, Ethel. Go back inside.”

I stepped closer, moving through the circle of workmen, saw that it was young Brian Smith, the one they call Smitty, who’d fallen. He was backing away from the water, dripping wet and shivering. Galletti was behind him, also soaked.

“Are you all right? Let me get you some blankets and hot drinks,” I offered.

“I did not fall in,” Smitty said. “She pulled me. She grabbed my leg and pulled me in.”

“Who?” I asked.

“There was a woman.”

“A woman… in the water?” My heartbeat made a whooshing sound inside my ears.

Smitty nodded. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down on his thin neck. “She was right there,” he said, pointing at the black water.

“I saw her, too,” said another man.

“It was her,” someone whispered. “The woman in the water.”

“The woman in the water?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“She grabbed me,” Smitty said. “Pulled me under. She wouldn’t let go.”

“We’ve all seen her,” said another man, the stonemason. His voice was raised, high and frantic. “Haven’t we? Hasn’t every man here seen her at least once? Heard her calling?”

“Who?” I said. “Heard who?”

“Please, Ethel,” Will said. “Go back inside.”

“Yes,” I heard men saying. Then whispers, as one by one they each admitted it, each beginning his own tale in a hushed breath. I only caught a few words: woman; beautiful; she sings to me sometimes; “come swimming,” she says.

“It was Eliza Harding,” said Galletti as he stepped farther away, eyes on the dark water of the pool.

“That’s impossible,” Will said.

“Eliza,” I repeated.

“Go inside, Ethel,” Will ordered, his voice stern. “Now.”

Eliza.

I closed my eyes, heard her voice—the voice of the nightmare Eliza with weeds in her hair, pale green skin, and black eyes: Don’t you understand? She belongs to the springs.

The world went black as if I was the one who’d fallen into the pool. I felt the dark water rushing up around me as I was pulled farther and farther down.

“Maggie,” I said.

“She’s fine, Ethel. She’s upstairs sleeping. You fainted,” Will said. He was beside me, holding a glass of brandy. “Here, sip this.”

I sat up, took a drink of the brandy. “Are you sure? Have you checked on her?”

“I’m sure. She’s sound asleep. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “A little woozy, maybe.”

My name is Mrs. Monroe, and I am sipping brandy on my couch. Everything is fine.

“How’s Smitty? I think he needs the brandy more than I do.”

Will frowned. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“The entire work crew quit.” He took a long pull from the glass of brandy. His hand seemed to tremble slightly. “Damned fools.”

“All of them?”

He nodded. “Even Galletti. The ridiculous stories they tell! Talk of curses and ghosts. Superstitious fools.” He ran his hands through his hair, exasperated.

“What will we do?” I looked around at the walls and ceiling that weren’t yet plastered, the pile of trim boards stacked in the corner of the room. “We can’t finish it on our own!”

“Of course not.” His jaw tensed. “I’m going to interview more men. Men who aren’t from Brandenburg, who haven’t heard all these crazy stories. I’ll go back to New Hampshire if I have to. Or get men all the way from Boston. There are so many good men out of work these days, I’ll have a line of candidates a mile long. I’ll offer double pay if they can get the work done by fall—half the salary on a weekly basis and the other as a lump sum when they finish. The lure of hard cash should be stronger than ghost stories and folktales.”

And I wanted to say that we should leave, too. We should pack up, get in our car, and drive as far away from here, from this house and the pool, as we possibly could. I wanted to beg.

But then I thought of Maggie sleeping upstairs.

And I knew we could not leave.

We and this place, we’re bound together.

November 12, 1931

“None of this is right,” I say as I drag the settee into yet another location. Two plush chairs are across from it, a low polished maple table in the middle. I’ve been rearranging the living room furniture all afternoon and evening, and I am exhausted. My back aches. My head feels like it’s being split open by a hammer and chisel.

Sparrow Crest is finished at last. Will hired a team of men from New Hampshire who came and camped in big canvas tents while they finished the house. Will paid them an extravagant amount of money and had them each sign a contract stating that any talk of ghosts or curses would mean they’d be instantly let go without pay. The men worked like machines, quiet and determined; obviously eager to finish the job and get out.

I don’t know if any of them saw anything in the pool. They did not dare say. But it was obvious to me that they sensed that something was not quite right. Any visitor to Sparrow Crest notices right away.

Not everyone is afraid of the pool. Some still come looking for the springs, hoping for a cure, a miracle. People on crutches, the old and infirm, parents carrying sick children. Will sends them all away. He’s put up PRIVATE PROPERTY NO TRESSPASSING signs.

Sparrow Crest is so much larger and more grand than the house we left behind in Lanesborough—I think there is no way we will ever fill it. The rooms look sparse. The furniture we have looks out of place—our table is much too small for the dining room; the settee and armchairs all wrong for the living room.

“We’ll get new furniture,” Will says, coming to wrap his arms around me and kiss my head. “We’ll take measurements. We can have things shipped by train from Boston.” I relax, feel myself melting into him. “I promise, darling wife, that I will find you the perfect furniture for this room if it’s the last thing I do!”

I feel like a little girl playing house. I move from room to room like a shadow. I am always cold, no matter how large a fire we build. I layer on the sweaters and coats until I am nearly lost inside them. I lock myself away in the bathroom and prick myself with a pin.

I am Mrs. Monroe and I am home. I am home. I am home.

I often remember that first night Will and I were at the hotel. How I stood on the balcony, dizzy with this strange sense of familiarity. How I turned and said to Will: Like we’re meant to be here. Like coming home when you’ve been away a long time.

Did some part of me know then that we would one day make our home here, become caretakers of the springs, for better or worse?

Maggie loves Sparrow Crest and spends her days thumping along from room to room, sitting by sunny windows and playing, talking nonstop. She has never seemed healthier, more energetic.

Her favorite thing to do is sit by the pool. She has long conversations with it, stringing together a babbling of words I only half-understand.

We eat lunch out there beside the water. It’s far too cold to swim now, but we sit at the edge and dip our feet in, me holding tight to Maggie so she won’t slip in.

“We must be very careful with Maggie around the water,” Will says. “We must keep the kitchen door locked at all times so she can’t wander out there on her own. And we must never, ever take our eyes off her when we’re out near the pool.”

As though I didn’t realize the dangers.

“Come on, darling wife,” Will says, taking my hand. “Let’s go up to bed. You’ve put in a long day. The furniture conundrum will still be here tomorrow.”

“You head up,” I tell him. “I’ll join you in a minute.” I watch him go up the stairs and I walk into the kitchen, slip out through the kitchen door, inhaling the night air, the iron-y scent of the pool.

It is not at all like living in town. The nights here are so dark and quiet; more dark and quiet than anything I have ever known. But oh, the stars! The stars are so much more beautiful. I tilt my head back and look. So many stars! They seem closer, brighter than they ever did in town. As if I could just reach out and touch them. I spend a few minutes looking, head back until my neck aches, inventing constellations: an egg, a girl, a castle. I look down and see their light reflected in the pool, like a black mirror. It’s as if the water is its own galaxy full of constellations. I look down at it until I am dizzy, disoriented, then I go back inside, latching all the doors, turning out the lights.

I am Mrs. Monroe, closing up the house for the night.

Slowly, I climb the steps and pad down the hall, look in on Maggie, sleeping peacefully, then join Will in our room.

“I brought you a glass of brandy to help you sleep,” he says.

I thank him and dutifully sip it down as I get ready for bed.

“It’s getting too cold for your night wanderings,” he tells me.

I’ve been unsettled at night. I toss and turn and have such strange dreams. Sometimes Will wakes up, and I’m not in bed beside him. He comes down to find me in the kitchen with a cup of tea, or out by the pool or in the rose garden.

I make a noncommittal noise, a sort of grunt in response. I’m not agreeing or disagreeing. Only acknowledging that I heard him.

Tonight, despite the calming effects of the brandy, I lay awake listening to the wind against the house. Will is sound asleep, has been since he put his head on the pillow. There it is: the sound of the front door opening.

I slip out of bed, gently, so as not to wake Will. I go down the hall to check on Maggie—sleeping soundly in her crib.

Could have been the wind that blew it open. That’s what Will would say. What any sensible person would say.

But I know it wasn’t.