Summer's End Read online

  Jacob sighed. “Thought so. The second time Ichiro and I went into the house, we heard running feet and laughter. It must’ve been Colton following us. Maybe he was working up his courage to talk to me.”

  “I wonder why he only appeared to you and not the rest of us,” Hayden said.

  “You’re talking about it like it was a good thing,” Jacob said. “Trust me, it wasn’t. You should be counting your lucky stars, not complaining.”

  “I’m not complaining. It’s just weird.”

  “What isn’t weird about that place?” Hannah asked. “I actually now believe in ghosts. That’s messed up.”

  “Why do you think we all heard the lullaby during yesterday’s game?” Hayden asked.

  “I think …” Jacob said. “I think Tresa needs help. I think she’s in trouble, even though she’s, um, dead.” He turned his attention back to the letter and fit the last two pieces together.

  They looked over their work for any glaring mistakes. It was a bit of guesswork, thanks to the cursive writing. But the edges of the pieces all seemed to line up and the writing appeared to flow. So he ripped small pieces of tape off a roll he had brought from home and handed them one at a time to Ichiro, who placed them on the letter.

  “All right, what now?” Hannah asked.

  Ichiro stood and picked up the letter gingerly, as if he was an archaeologist handling a priceless artifact. “Now we read it. Drumroll, please,” Ichiro said.

  The twins began drumming on the edge of the computer desk, but Jacob quickly silenced them with a finger to his lips. “We’re trying not to draw attention, remember?”

  “That was, like, professional-grade shushing,” Ichiro said. “I think you just found your calling as a librarian.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny.”

  “No, I’m serious. You and Rio could take turns yelling at teenagers and bugging old men.”

  “Who’s Rio?” Hayden asked.

  “One of the librarians who works here,” Ichiro said.

  “Weird name.”

  “It’s not that weird,” Jacob said defensively. “And besides, he’s a nice guy.”

  “See?” Ichiro said with a laugh. “You two were destined to work together! You could be Robin to his Batman. Chewie to his Han. Patrick to his SpongeBob. I’ll carry on if someone doesn’t stop me.”

  Jacob held his hands up in the air and laughed. “All right, all right. Enough. Read the letter already, will you?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Ichiro began to read:

  12 August 1915

  Dear Albruna,

  I write to you in faith that our dear mother is doing well and that the task of looking after her in her old age has not been too great a burden on you. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss you, her and father, may God bless his soul.

  I wish I could tell you all is well here in Canada, but I am not prone to lying. It is true that my husband and I want for nothing. We are well fed and clothed, and that is a blessing, especially during these trying times with so many sick and dying. Our home, “Summer’s End,” is big enough for two or three families, but of course that is precisely the problem.

  Oh, dear sister, I fear I must tell you about the tragedy that has befallen me, although I do not wish to think upon it. It is a misery from God, and although I try not to question His will, I know not why He has singled me out in such a cruel fashion. You know how desperately I want children of my own to raise and to love, always and forever. And yet it is with great sadness that I report that I am barren and cannot bear a child. Helping the poor children here at home who are ill with tuberculosis has been rewarding, but it’s also a double-edged sword. For I know in my heart that it is not wise to grow too attached to my patients, as when their health improves they will leave me, and I will once again be childless and alone.

  It is not an accident that I say I am alone. My husband has thrown himself into his work and largely ignores me. Worse than that, he seems to hold me personally accountable for my body’s failings, and he is taking his anger out on the children he treats. He never once raised his voice in all the years I knew him, and now he yells sporadically at everyone around him, and he has taken to drink.

  I am afraid, dear sister. I know not what he might do. He is irrational and unravelling at the seams. I know that it is important for a man of medicine to keep his surgical tools clean and in good condition to prevent the spread of infection and disease, and yet he spends all his free time, well past nightfall every evening, sharpening his knives and saws. I pray to God that he does so purely for work, and not with any other hidden evil intent.

  I am sorry, so terribly sorry, to write such a bleak letter to you, and I wish I had happier tidings. But I fear that if I did not take the time to write to you now, I might not have another chance to do so.

  Please kiss dear mother for me when you read this, and say a little prayer in my name.

  Your sister,

  Tresa

  Ichiro sat back and sighed. “Well, that’s pretty much the saddest thing I’ve ever read.”

  Jacob couldn’t have agreed more. So many elements added up to paint a piteous picture. Tresa’s call for help that never reached her sister, her grief over not being able to have children of her own, her isolation in Summer’s End, her fear of her husband and his descent into madness, her thinly veiled and uncanny prediction that he was about to kill her.

  “See?” Jacob said. “She needs help. She needed it back then,” he pointed at the letter, “and she still needs it now. I don’t know how she did it, but I’m pretty sure she’s using that song to call us to the island.” Jacob frowned.

  “You’re wearing your ‘thinking face,’ Jake,” Ichiro pointed out.

  “She said she was helping the poor children here at home. She must’ve meant ‘here in my home country of Canada,’ since she was writing to Germany.” Jacob shook his head. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “Why do you think she tore up the letter?” Hannah asked.

  “Maybe she was afraid of her husband finding it,” Jacob said. “Or maybe she didn’t rip it, but he did.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Ichiro said. “If he found and read this letter, he’d be furious. Maybe that’s what sent him over the edge. And if so …”

  “If so,” Jacob said, picking up on the thought that Ichiro had left hanging, “the murder-suicide would’ve taken place in the second half of 1915.”

  Ichiro pulled the picture of Tresa from his pocket and stood it up between two rows of keys on the keyboard. “The same year this picture was taken. She does look pretty miserable, doesn’t she? It all fits.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “It’s worth a shot …”

  “You two,” Hannah said, “are more like twins than we are.”

  “Thank you,” Ichiro said with a laugh.

  “Not a compliment. It’s freaky.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s worth a shot?” Hayden asked.

  “Last time we were here, Rio showed us how to use the microfilm reader,” Jacob said. “We knew the year the Stockwells got married, and that’s how we were able to find some information about them and Summer’s End. We figured there’d be at least one article the year they died — especially if there was a crime involved — but it took forever just to go through 1906 and we had no idea where to start searching for information about either of their deaths. But now, it might be worth trying 1915.”

  Ichiro pointed at the filing cabinet that held the Valeton Voice microfilm reels. “What are the chances Rio didn’t lock that?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Jacob tried the bottom drawer. It opened. “Still unlocked!” He scanned the boxes until he found the two he was looking for: 1915, Jul. to Sept. and 1915, Oct. to Dec. He handed the first box to Ichiro, who opened it and wound the film into the reader the same way they had done before.

  “Unauthorized usage of irreplaceable library materials,” Ichiro said, with a shake of h
is head. “If Rio ever finds out about this, you can kiss your chances of being his lapdog goodbye.”

  “Don’t make me shush you again.”

  Ichiro gave Jacob an exaggerated shiver and they laughed together.

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “Like I said, you two are freaks.”

  “All right, let’s see what we can find.”

  Ichiro scrolled through the days, flying past July and the first half of August. He slowed down when he reached the twelfth, just in case, and their excitement levels rose immediately.

  “This is really cool,” Hayden said. “I feel like Sherlock Holmes or something.”

  “Watson!” Ichiro shouted. “Jake could be Watson to Rio’s Sherlock Holmes!”

  Jacob cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I’m never going to be allowed back in the building if you keep yelling.”

  “We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?” Ichiro turned back to the reader and continued scrolling. August 13, August 16 … “Just so you know,” he said, looking at the twins, “this is like looking for a needle in a haystack, so it might take a while before—”

  “There!” Hayden said, pointing at the screen. “Right there!”

  “Well, that was fast,” Ichiro said.

  “Holy …” Jacob said in awe, as he stared at the screen. Random words jumped out at him from the article: bloodbath, cut, stabbed, knives, carnage, gore …

  BLOODBATH ON SEPEQUOI LAKE

  A murder and a suicide was the climax of a week of quarrelling in an island home turned private sanatorium on Sepequoi Lake when Dr. James Stockwell, a well-to-do man, cut his wife, Tresa Stockwell, across her lower abdomen and then stabbed himself in the heart.

  The murder weapon, one of the doctor’s surgical knives, was found covered with a mix of the couple’s blood on the floor between their bodies in the main hallway. The crime was committed early in the morning on Friday of last week and their quarrel was overheard by tuberculosis patients in an adjoining room. Dr. Stockwell turned his home into a small sanatorium for the treatment of consumptives when the hospital in Gravenhurst, where he previously worked, became overcrowded. Many regarded Dr. Stockwell as a local hero for this altruistic gesture, but that reputation will now be tarnished forever.

  Mrs. Stockwell assisted him as a nurse in their home, and the couple were well regarded for their efforts in the fight against the tuberculosis epidemic. Their open-air treatments on their secluded island had already cured eight young children, and of the nine patients who were still in the home as of last week, another seven were close to being discharged with a clean bill of health. Three children had died in the home: Danny Fielding, 6, of Gravenhurst; and Sharon Kennedy, 8, and Jeremy Langdon, 12, both of Valeton. They fell to their illness last month.

  Garrett Jones, Valeton’s Chief of Police, described the crime scene as a bloodbath. Jones said he has never seen such a horrific scene of carnage and gore in his 32 years as a policeman.

  One of the young patients reported that he heard Dr. Stockwell yell at his wife, “It’s all your fault,” during the argument that preceded the crime, and then told her he’d stop her. The argument abruptly ended there. The children remained in their room until they were rescued when a visiting doctor discovered the tragedy later in the afternoon.

  The children further reported that Dr. Stockwell had been irritable for the past three weeks or more, often muttering to himself and yelling at them and his wife for no apparent reason.

  It is believed that ownership of the Stockwells’ house and their possessions will pass to Mrs. Stockwell’s sister, Albruna Cannington, and her English husband, William Cannington, who live in Germany. Dr. Stockwell does not have any surviving family.

  Jacob’s mind raced as his head spun.

  “Um, Jake?” Ichiro said. “What was Colton’s last name?”

  Sitting in the library’s local history room with his three best friends staring at him with grim anticipation, Jacob felt like he’d been crushed by a boulder.

  “Cannington,” he said. “His name was Colton Cannington.”

  TWELVE

  August 18

  It only rained once over the course of the following week, but the storm lasted little more than ten minutes and the ground was nearly completely dry by the time the clouds had parted.

  As soon as the sun came back out, Jacob hopped on his bike and continued to ride up and down Main Street. He’d done the same for the past few days, but he still hadn’t found who he was looking for.

  As he biked around town, he passed countless locals and tourists who all seemed to be preoccupied by the weather, although with opposing viewpoints. The locals were upset that their flowers had died and their lawns had the colour and texture of dried hay, while the tourists couldn’t believe their good luck in having nothing but clear blue skies and sun for the duration of their getaways.

  Jacob brought his bike to a stop in front of a small barbershop. He shielded his eyes with his hand and scanned the street. There were a few other people walking along the sidewalk, but no one he recognized.

  “Where are you, Mrs. Cannington?” he muttered under his breath.

  Although he had tried to avoid her for years and was dreading the prospect of seeing her now, he knew it was something he had to do. After he and his friends had discovered that she could be connected to Tresa, he decided he’d have to talk to her. Sensing his trepidation, Ichiro and the twins had offered to tag along with him, but Jacob had turned them down. Mrs. Cannington wasn’t well, and he wasn’t sure she’d speak to him, let alone four kids surrounding her at once. Plus, he had something he needed to say to her — something he’d been putting off saying for the past four years — and he didn’t want his friends there when he said it.

  “Son, what do you want with that crazy woman?” an old man asked him.

  Jacob jumped. He didn’t think anyone was that close. The old man who had spoken was standing behind him, leaning against the frame of the barbershop door.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jacob said, once his breathing had returned to normal.

  The old man laughed. “Oh, right. My apologies. I guess you’re looking for the Mrs. Cannington who frequents this very street who isn’t crazy.”

  Jacob sighed. “How do you know I’m looking for her?”

  “You said her name, not even a minute ago.”

  “So that’s how you spend your days? Standing around listening to strangers?” Jacob didn’t know the man but his first impression wasn’t a good one.

  “Son,” the old man said with a smile, “I’m a barber. Listening to people is half of what I do.”

  “Please stop calling me son,” Jacob said. He sat back on his bike and prepared to ride away.

  “Hang on a second. Maybe I can help you.”

  “Why would you do that? Why would you help me?”

  “I’ve offended you, and for that I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you.”

  “What are you offering? A free haircut? Don’t worry, I’m good.”

  “No, I’m not offering you a free haircut. From what I can see poking out from under your helmet, I can tell you’ve got a beautiful head of hair just the way it is.”

  The twinkle in the old man’s eyes led Jacob to believe he was being sarcastic. He was just about to ride away without hearing him out when the old man spoke again.

  “I’m offering to tell you where you can find crazy Mrs. Cannington.”

  Jacob hesitated. “You know where she is?”

  “Well, I can’t say I know where she is for certain. She could be anywhere in the world, I suppose. But chances are, if she’s not here on this street, she’s sitting in the shuttered darkness of her home. And I can tell you where that is.”

  “All right, then. Where does she live?”

  “I’ll tell you, but first you have to tell me something.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You have to tell me why you’re looking for her.”

&nbs
p; Jacob gently bit his lips together to stop himself from saying something that he’d regret. He opted, instead, to simply say, “Goodbye.”

  “Wait. You have to understand, I can’t simply tell a stranger where someone lives. That would be … unethical.” Something in the old man’s smile made Jacob doubt he truly believed that. He seemed to be playing with Jacob, probably out of boredom. There wasn’t a single customer in his barbershop.

  Why did I have to stop in front of his door? Jacob wondered.

  “Fine,” Jacob said. If nothing else, telling the old man would end the conversation, even if it didn’t get him any closer to Mrs. Cannington. “I used to go to school with her son.”

  “Were you friends?”

  “Not exactly.”

  The old man nodded and pursed his lips, considering the information he’d been given. “All right, I believe you. She lives two streets over, on Bloomington Avenue.”

  “Which house?”

  “It’s on the south side of the street, near the bend. I don’t know the number, but trust me, you’ll know which house is hers.”

  Without bothering to thank the man, Jacob set off, eager to leave his company. But then an afterthought came to him and he stopped. “You know, since you mentioned ethics, you really shouldn’t call her crazy. It’s not nice. She’s been through a lot.”

  The old man opened his mouth but no words came out. Jacob rode away, revelling in the fact that he’d silenced someone who so clearly valued the sound of his own voice over the feelings of others.

  * * *

  He’d annoyed Jacob, but the old man hadn’t lied. Jacob knew precisely which house belonged to Mrs. Cannington.

  Jacob had never seen Colton’s home before, but he had a hard time imagining it ever looking halfway normal.

  It was a two-storey house made of red brick and white plaster. Each of the windows’ blinds was drawn tight and the glass desperately needed a good cleaning. The paint on the window and door frames had nearly peeled off completely, and the wood appeared to be rotting. The lawn was more weeds than grass and had been left to grow waist high. Amazingly, a single red rose bloomed from a bush that appeared to be dead. Jacob stopped, admiring the rose’s determination and will to survive.