The Shaft

The Shaft

By Marianne Strong, excerpt

The swing swayed again, back toward the house and forward toward the garden. My eyes and flashlight followed the forward arc back to the garden until two white statues swam into my vision. The statues drew me like ghostly figures summoning me to some solemn ceremony.

I walked up to the garden. Pots or chrysanthemums, all purple, sloped down to the center of the sunken ground circling one of the statues.

Again I had the feeling that something was not quite right. O couldn’t figure it. The statue was lovely enough. A smiling angel, its hands together and just touching the chin, the head bowed down toward the earth, the wings folded slightly in toward each other as if the seraph, come to perform some heavenly task, had just lighted upon this ground.

My memory kicked into service again. I’d seen this statue befor. In fact, several such statues. Up at St. Casimir’s cemetery in Bloomsville Heights. One of the local morticians stocked them. They were popular with Bloomsville’s widows.

I looked up at the other statue standing about six feet away, up against some dark cypress. This statue I had seen in Helen’s yard before. For years, during my childhood visits to Aunt Chesla, this pure white Virgin Mary had kept an eye on Helen’s backyard, and on everyone who sat on the bench that Helen used to have where the angel lstood now. I frowned. The Virgin must have gotten a little tired of her vigil. She seemed to list to the left.

The letter P, photo by Elena

From behind me came a shuffle and a cough. I swung around, expecting to see Helen descending on me with whateveer axe or bludgeon she had used to kill Walter.

Two boys, one about six and the other about nine, stared with wide eyes as if I were the axe murderer.

“Hey,” I said, lowering my flashlight. “What are you doing here?”

The six-year-old tried to bolt and run, but tripped over his own feet.

“Geez, Jimmie,” the other boy said, and hauled the six-year-old to his feet. “We just came up to see.”

“To see what?” I said. “I don’t see anything.”

The boys eyes darted behind me in the garden. “We have to go now,” the older boy said. “C’mon, Jimmie.”

But Jimmie had apparently decided that I was harmless. And also that I was a typical lying adult. “Can I see them?” He opened his brown eyes wider and peeked round me.

“See what, Jimmie?”

“The monster potatoes.”

My eyes got wider.

“Ah, c’mon, Jimmie,” the older boy said. “There ain’t no monster potatoes. We gotta go before Mom calls.”

“You said there was.”

I could see that life with Jimmie would not be easyé He’d hold you to your word.

“Monster potatos?” I said. “Realy?”

Jimmie’s brother decided to come clean. “Yeah, some of the other kids said Mrs. Shiminski was growing monster potatoes. That’s why she started yelling when we came near the garden.”

“When did she start yelling?”

“When we came near the garden.”

“Uh, no,” I said, “I mean how long ago did she start yelling?”

Jimmie’s brother shrugged. “I don’t know. A while ago.” He raised his shoulders again, rather philosophically. “I don’t think there’s monster potatoes.” He looked expectantly at me.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I think there’s people buried there.”

“What makes you thing that?”

The shrug again. “I don’t know. It just looks like there’s people buried there. Lots of people. Dead people.”

Jimmie let out a howl.

(From Ellery Queen, Mystery Magazine, September 1993)