Summer's End Read online

  Jacob chained his bike to a lamppost, took a deep breath and walked to the front door. There was a pile of water-damaged issues of the Valeton Voice on the front step. The most recent issues were from three years ago when the paperboy, Jacob assumed, had decided to stop wasting his time by continuing to deliver to the house.

  After rehearsing one more time what he’d say if Mrs. Cannington actually answered the door, Jacob rang the doorbell and waited.

  The door didn’t open. He couldn’t hear any sounds from inside. He rang the doorbell again.

  I’ll try again tomorrow, Jacob thought, slightly relieved. He turned his back on the door—

  —and found himself staring at Mrs. Cannington.

  She was standing on the sidewalk with a paper grocery bag clutched tightly to her chest and a wild look in her eyes. Her wispy black hair blew in the breeze and obscured her face, but she didn’t bother brushing it out of her eyes or tucking it behind her ears. Her purple housecoat was even more faded than when Jacob had seen her last.

  “What are you doing here?” she said. “This is private property.”

  All of Jacob’s practised words — every single one — fled from his mind in an instant, and he was rendered mute.

  “Who are you?” she asked, while staring intently at the ground, unable to make eye contact. “Tell me!”

  Jacob raised his hands in what he hoped appeared to be a calm and reassuring gesture. “Mrs. Cannington, I’m—”

  She dropped her bag and took a quick step backwards. Jacob heard glass shatter inside, and three apples tumbled out. She looked straight at Jacob for the first time since he’d turned around and spotted her. “How do you know my name? Are you a doctor?” She raised a bony finger in warning. “If you take another step toward me, I’ll scream.”

  “What? No. My name is Jacob Callaghan. I’m … I mean, I was …” Jacob sighed and lowered his hands. “I knew your son. We were in the same class.”

  Mrs. Cannington raised a hand to her mouth. A muffled sob escaped through her fingers.

  “I’d like to talk to you about him, if that’s all right,” Jacob said softly. “It’ll only take a few minutes, then I’ll be on my way. Can I help you pick up your groceries?”

  When she didn’t answer, Jacob took that as a yes and approached her slowly. He collected the apples and put them in the bag. His finger scraped along a jagged piece of glass and he winced. He removed his hand and saw something red and wet on his skin.

  “Did you cut yourself?” Mrs. Cannington asked sympathetically, despite her still evident concern and distrust.

  “No,” Jacob said with a laugh. “It’s just marinara sauce. See?” He wiped his hand on his pants and held it up to her to prove that he was okay.

  She nodded once.

  “I think I owe you a jar of spaghetti sauce,” Jacob said.

  Mrs. Cannington seemed completely unconcerned about her food. “You know Colton?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “You two are friends?”

  Jacob nodded. It wasn’t the truth, not exactly, but he didn’t think being completely honest so soon would buy him any extra time.

  “Are you sure you’re not a doctor?”

  “I’m fourteen.”

  Mrs. Cannington looked up and down the street as if she was concerned she’d been trailed home, then nodded once more. “All right. Come inside.”

  Jacob wasn’t surprised to see that the inside of Mrs. Cannington’s house was in no better shape than the outside. In fact, it was much worse. Boxes were stacked in perilous towers that looked ready to topple at the slightest movement. Garbage and dirty dishes were piled in the sink and on the kitchen counter. The worst part, however, was the smell. The humid air was thick with a putrid mix of body odour and rotting food. If the house had an air conditioner, Mrs. Cannington hadn’t bothered to turn it on despite the heat wave, and not a single window was open, not even a crack.

  Jacob cleared a spot on the counter so he could put down the bag, then opened the refrigerator door. Each shelf was crammed with mystery items that bore more resemblance to science experiments than edible food.

  Mrs. Cannington sat at the kitchen table and watched him try to figure out where to put her groceries without offering to help. If she was embarrassed about her living conditions, she didn’t show it.

  Jacob finished making room in the fridge for the food that needed to be kept cool and decided to leave everything else in the bag on the counter. Red tomato sauce had soaked through the bottom of the bag and was spreading across the countertop. Not that it matters in this house, he thought.

  “Can I sit?” he asked, pointing at a free chair.

  Mrs. Cannington nodded and watched him closely as he joined her.

  After their rocky introduction, Jacob didn’t know how to begin. His gaze wandered around the kitchen and settled on a dusty framed photograph on the wall to his right. It was an enlarged picture of a young Colton sitting on the shoulders of a man Jacob assumed must be his father. Standing beside them was Mrs. Cannington, virtually unrecognizable compared to the broken shell of a woman who sat across the table from him. In the picture, frozen in a happier time, Colton and his parents all had smiles as wide as their cheeks could possibly stretch. Jacob quickly looked away.

  Every second that passed was a second longer than Jacob wanted to spend in Mrs. Cannington’s house. He decided to throw caution to the wind and dive right in. “I came to see you because I know what happened to Colton.”

  A flash of hope passed over Mrs. Cannington’s face, and she sat up a little straighter. “You do? Is he okay?”

  “No,” Jacob said flatly. Lying would do no good, and the longer he looked at Mrs. Cannington, the more he began to believe that she knew more than she was letting on. “He died four years ago, Mrs. Cannington. You do know that, don’t you?”

  Her face fell and she slumped back down in her chair, deflated and defeated. “No, I don’t know that.” She covered her eyes as if blocking out the world could stop its harsh realities from being true, at least within the confines of her mind. She struggled to hold back tears and shook her head.

  Jacob found a box of tissues and handed her one, which she accepted and held to her nose. “Thank you,” she said, surprising him. After a moment, she added, “I don’t want that to be true. I don’t think I could handle it.”

  “You already have. For four years …”

  Mrs. Cannington’s face was etched with pain.

  A long moment of silence stretched out between them before Mrs. Cannington said, “What happened to my son?”

  “This is going to sound—” Jacob barely stopped himself before he said the word crazy, “far-fetched, but I saw his …”

  “What? Saw his what?”

  He knew what he had to say but found it next to impossible to get the word to pass his lips. “His ghost. I know how that sounds, but it’s the truth. I saw his ghost.” He eyed Mrs. Cannington, trying to decipher what she was thinking. Her expression was stony, revealing nothing. “I understand if you want me to leave.”

  She looked up, and hard as Jacob found it to believe, she actually looked a little relieved. “No, it’s okay,” she said. “This might also sound far-fetched, but I believe you. I’ve seen things, even before all this.” She waved her hands in the air, indicating the kitchen, and Jacob had a good feeling he knew what she meant. Before my son disappeared. Before my husband died. Before my world fell apart. “Tell me what else you know. Where did you see him?”

  Jacob knew what he was about to say was critical. He watched Mrs. Cannington closely to gauge her reaction. “I saw him on an island in Sepequoi Lake, outside a house called Summer’s End.”

  Mrs. Cannington looked down and fidgeted with the tissue Jacob had given her. “And where’s that?”

  “Mrs. Cannington,” Jacob said, careful to keep a soft, neutral tone, “I know you know where that is.”

  “And how do you know so much for a fourteen-year-old boy?�
��

  Jacob knew she was changing the subject in an attempt to avoid the truth, but at least she hadn’t asked him to leave. “I read an old article from the Valeton Voice in the library about the couple who used to live there, the Stockwells.”

  She remained expressionless.

  Jacob didn’t see any point mentioning the murder-suicide. “The article said the property passed to William and Albruna Cannington.”

  “A coincidence. There could be other Canningtons in the area.”

  “I thought of that, so I took a look online. You’re the only Cannington listed in Valeton. In fact, you’re the only Cannington listed in the entire Muskoka region. So if you weren’t related to William and Albruna, that would be one awfully big coincidence, don’t you think?”

  After a moment spent staring at a point on the wall over Jacob’s shoulder, Mrs. Cannington suddenly looked at him with such pain and sorrow that it nearly broke his heart. Years of grief filled every line on her face and her lips trembled as she spoke. “I told them I didn’t want that house. I told them it was cursed.”

  “Told who?”

  “My parents-in-law. I wanted them to sell, to get it out of our family, but they refused. They said no one could live there, that it had been passed down through five generations of Canningtons after … after what happened there. And I saw.” She nodded. “I saw.”

  “Saw what?”

  “That they were right. My mother- and father-in-law had never taken Bill, my husband, when he was a boy — he didn’t even know they owned it. On the surface, it looked like the perfect summer retreat for a young boy. His parents knew that, knew the appeal it would hold for Bill, so they kept it a secret. Until he was an adult and they were too old to guard the house any longer. That’s when they first told us about Summer’s End, the whole bloody history, and that it was being left to us in their will. When I refused to accept and then threatened to sell it to the first buyer possible, they decided it was time to take us out there. To show us exactly why we could never sell it, could never thrust it upon an unsuspecting family.

  “And I … saw … him.”

  “Dr. Stockwell,” Jacob said. “I saw him too.”

  “Oh, dear God,” Mrs. Cannington said with a gasp. “How did Colton find Summer’s End? What did that monster do to my son?”

  “Had Colton ever been to Summer’s End before?”

  “No! Never. I wouldn’t have allowed it. Bill and I decided it would be safer to keep the island secret until we needed to pass it on to Colton, just as the family had always done. I had to remove all the photographs of the doctor from the frames throughout the house and hide them. I couldn’t stand to look at his face — it was like his eyes followed me wherever I went. Then I removed all the photographs of Tresa for good measure. Bill and I went out there twice a year just to make sure no squatters had stumbled upon it and decided to move in, but we never took Colton. So how did he end up there?”

  Jacob felt as if his blood was swelling in his veins and threatening to burst through his skin. Like a mosquito with its needle pinched into a child’s arm, unable to escape before it explodes in a bloody mess.

  This was the moment he had dreaded more than any other. The admission he didn’t want his friends to hear. The secret he had held for four long years.

  “I have something to tell you,” he said quietly. “Something I should have told you long ago.”

  Mrs. Cannington looked at him with suspicion and curiosity, but not anger or hatred. That gave Jacob a little confidence to continue, but he knew the anger and hate would likely come crashing down on him soon.

  “Like I told you,” he said, “Colton and I were in the same class in grade four. We weren’t exactly friends, but we had a friendly rivalry and used to dare each other to do stuff. I don’t know why. Just stupid kid stuff, I guess.”

  Jacob paused and took a breath. Tears began to well up in his eyes. It was nearly impossible saying this out loud for the first time ever. But he’d already started, and he knew there was no turning back now.

  “The day before he …” He stopped, then started again. “We were playing tag in the playground. I couldn’t catch him and was stuck being ‘it’ for a long time, so I wanted to get back at him somehow. I said something so, so stupid. I said, ‘I hope the Kalapik gets you one day.’ I didn’t mean it but I couldn’t take it back.

  “But Colton just laughed and said, ‘The Kalapik’s not real. I’m not afraid of a dumb story.’

  “I said. ‘Oh yeah? Then prove it.’”

  A tear escaped from Jacob’s eye and slid down his cheek.

  “That was the last thing I ever said to Colton,” Jacob said. “The next day he disappeared. And I’m pretty sure … I’m pretty sure it’s my fault.”

  Time slowed down. Ten-year-old Colton smiled out from the picture behind his mother as she sat silent and still, processing what Jacob had just told her. Suddenly she spoke, but what she said was not what Jacob had expected.

  “My husband,” she said, pointing at the ceiling, “killed himself two floors up, exactly above where we’re sitting now. He tried to hold on to life for as long as he could after he lost hope that our son was still alive. But then the burden grew too great for him to bear. He bought a cord of rope, tied a knot in it and climbed the ladder to the attic. He hanged himself.” She turned her finger down and tapped it forcefully on the table. “That was his choice. He had been through such grief — far more than any parent should have to suffer — but that was still his choice.”

  She placed both of her hands flat on the tabletop and her face softened. “If what you’re telling me is true — if my son died at Summer’s End — then he decided to go there. And I” — she choked on her words and needed to clear her throat before continuing — “I believe you. Whether or not he wanted to prove to you, himself or God knows who else that he wasn’t afraid of the Kalapik, boating out to the island was his decision. And you know something? Knowing that now … knowing that now gives me a small shred of peace.”

  She sobbed and shook and Jacob watched awkwardly, thinking she might want to be alone but thinking it would be rude to get up and leave her.

  As he watched her cry, he grew concerned. She was paler than she’d been before and beads of sweat had formed on her forehead.

  “Mrs. Cannington, are you feeling okay?”

  She didn’t respond. She didn’t look as if she could. Her head and shoulders were hunched over and she began to gasp and wheeze to catch her breath.

  “Oh no,” Jacob said, as the gravity of what was happening weighed down on him. He pulled out his phone and dialed 9-1-1. “Please send help,” he said when the operator answered. “I’m with a woman who is having a stroke or a heart attack or something.”

  “Hang on,” he told Mrs. Cannington, after the operator had assured him paramedics were on their way. “Help will be here soon. You’ll be okay.”

  A few tense minutes passed. Jacob wished desperately that there was something he could do. Mrs. Cannington was getting worse by the second.

  Her face was now beet red and her eyes were bloodshot. She clutched at her chest and nodded. “Please,” she whispered. “If you find my son, if his soul is trapped here, promise me you’ll help him.”

  Jacob nodded vigorously. “I promise, but how?”

  “There’s a black journal … in my bedside table upstairs … and in the hall …” She closed her eyes and moaned. Every word seemed to be causing her extreme pain. “In the hall there’s a …” She moaned again, louder than before, and doubled over in pain, unable to finish what she had been saying.

  There was a knock at the door and two paramedics entered with a stretcher. They asked Mrs. Cannington a series of questions, but she was in too much distress to answer, so Jacob did his best to tell them what had happened. They strapped her to the stretcher and told him he could come with them to the Valeton Hospital.

  “Oh, we’re not related,” Jacob said. “I was just helping her with her gro
ceries.”

  The paramedics nodded, loaded Mrs. Cannington into the back of an ambulance and drove away. It happened in a blur.

  Jacob went upstairs and found Mrs. Cannington’s room. It wasn’t as messy as the first floor — as if she’d been hesitant to touch anything since her son had disappeared. Or maybe she slept downstairs on the couch. Regardless, the room gave Jacob the creeps. So he went straight to the night stand, opened the drawer and dug around through a stack of papers, old batteries and other random items. He found a black journal. He flipped through the pages — it was filled with messy handwriting, but he didn’t want to stay in the house any longer than necessary. He stuck the journal in his pocket and raced back downstairs.

  He looked at the towers of boxes piled to the ceiling that lined the hallway. “In the hall,” Mrs. Cannington had said. But she didn’t say where he should look, and she didn’t say what he should look for. Jacob patted the journal in his pocket. Maybe this will be enough, he thought. He cast a final look at the cluttered hallway and stepped outside, filled with grim determination. It’s going to have to be.

  He had made a promise. A promise he intended to keep.

  THIRTEEN

  August 25

  Ever since he had watched the paramedics take her to the hospital, Jacob had spent all his free time poring over the black journal Mrs. Cannington had told him to take. At the top of the first page was the name of the person who had written in it: Albruna Cannington.Tresa’s sister.

  Jacob had a hard time deciphering long passages of her scribbled handwriting. It was as if Albruna had written in a great hurry or was totally insane. Possibly both.

  Definitely insane, Jacob concluded as he had continued to flip through the journal’s pages throughout the week. Most of her thoughts didn’t make a lot of sense. At least she had written in English, or else he would have had to painstakingly type the whole thing into an online translator. It was all about Summer’s End and the ghosts that haunted its halls and rooms, but her thoughts had a habit of rambling. The pain of what had happened was probably too fresh, too raw.