22/5/1975

I can’t believe Hannah wore that at the party. Does she really want Pastor Nicholas all judgemental over her? I could tell Tara was totally staring to memorize every single unsavory detail. Nevermind Deep Purple, but Black Sabbath? Oooh, you feisty little thing.

Still, at least she wasn’t moping! I’d have sworn Tara’d be over poor Lassie Leslie, but nope. She didn’t even notice Brian staring upskirt. What a chode. A smart one, sure, but a chode nonetheless. Thank the Lord he didn’t bring that portable terminal of his, or a camera. But! He did bring the Coors. A whole load of them. And turns out, he is a lot better as a bartender than as a conversationalist. Said he learned some cocktails from a friend of this mythical uncle from Florida. Which is nice. Less nice was him trying to impress Janet with that little fact. She just smiled and nodded. Stone-cold, my girl.

We hit the deck while Brian continued trying to hit on her. Clear afternoon skies, very few barges pootling around. You could see as far as downtown, as far as the river. Crisp air, not yet warm. But it’s getting there. Hannah and I sat on one of the benches, watching Derek and Brad climb one of the oaks like they were kids. Janet stayed behind, up until the natter coming from Brian’s mouth slowed to a crawl, and then that awkward silence that told me he knew it wasn’t gonna end in anything but a few courteous glances.

Thoughts: Janet’s House. I wish dad had settled for a brighter house, like Janet’s. Nevermind the solarium: There’s just so much lighting streaming from elsewhere. Tall, narrow windows in the hallway, the sliding glass door of the deck, these long ones in the kitchen, all nearly always open. Gauzy drapes too.

So it’s cold. Cold as a witch’s tits. No wonder that Janet wants to go to Florida for two weeks. This place doesn’t look like it settles for a mild temp, even in summer. It’s either chilly, or choking heat. Judging by the way the lady of said house spent like two hours on the deck, today’s one of the few days in which the temp was bearable.

I dunno why her parents don’t want to put any money into a good AC. Dad says it’s ‘cause it’d drive down the resale value of the house. Said they bought it off the last owner for a fifth the actual price it’d have gone, and when I asked him what sort of number you’d be looking at, he said something around two hundred and twenty thousand. Holy heck. Even with the fact that it’s a cliffside crib and with that nice driveway with all these pines? That’s way too much. Plus, who are you going to sell this thing to? Everyone moneyed enough’s getting a spot upstream, after all.

23/5/1975

First thing I noticed today coming back home was the atmosphere. It’s gotten cloudier. The sky too. Heard mom and dad talking in hushed, tired tones from the kitchen. Turns out they want to make the woodland ban official, and they were hashing out a way to sweeten the delivery. Trotted out to my room, and lo and behold. A few minutes later they asked me to take Tim to the park. You know, to soften the blow.

Apparently they forgot that his favorite pond was still a mess. Last time I went by- Was going to the McDonalds across the street- All I saw was a bunch of CL&M folks dithering around. Hannah swore she saw them drive by that specific pond like five times a day over the past three days. Either someone is wasting company time, or the damage’s way worse than we thought. At least I don't have to worry about Timmy hauling Old Biter across the road anymore.

But that was a bitter consolation. Tim knew something was up the moment he stepped back into the house. Had that beaten dog look I hate. So we basically spent a hour looking at people in bright yellow jumpsuits poke and prod at a mound of mud with shovels and pinchers. He didn’t ask me anything, which was kind of good ‘cause I had screw-all answers. Plus, he was already eying the rest of the park. Morosely, sure, but I’ve a hunch what he was thinking about. Wish I had the guts to interrupt mum and dad. Tell them that yes. It’s an attitude thing, dear mother. If he isn’t going round and round trees and toadstool circles, he’s poking scrapped machines. If he isn’t trying to get tetanus, he’s exploring downtown. Still, I can’t blame her for trying to do something. Anything. Just wishing she had the time to actually talk to Tim.

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Today got weirder. Janet, Hannah and I were walking to Mrs. Dartmouth’s house for the whole research thing on the long winter, and we passed by Tara’s house.

I didn’t remember that they had a wire mesh fence. Asked Hannah if it was their new anti-dog-mauling thing, and she pointed out a spot in which the fence had been replaced. A circular hole. So apparently something managed to chew through the fence, and that something got poochie.

Mrs. Dartmouth thinks it was a bear. She said they tend to become rowdy when the summer approaches and females go into heat. Males become territorial, while the ladies start looking for food. Food like poochie. Even more so after a harsh winter. I’d have to ask Carl if she was making any sense, but I wouldn’t put it past a bear to be able to rip through a chain link fence. Brad says there’s a new big one in the trails too, an old male that was ousted from the heights by some newer, stronger guy.

Between thinking about that and Hannah gossiping about Brian’s crush on Tara, I admit we did very little.

However, it did occur to me that I could kill two birds with one stone: Bring Tim with me to the Halls of Song and finish the research there.

Thoughts: Mrs. Dartmouth. She’s been old as far as I can remember. Huge wide glasses, squinting grey eyes, hair like a housewife from the 50s. In hindsight, I should’ve realized something was off with her vision. But by the time the cataracts got weird she’d already learned the library’s planimetry by heart, and when she retired, it’d been a good year after she started being unable to cross the road without help.

Not that she’d accept it. Even now, even after all of mom’s worrying, she is still living alone. Kind of doing a great job of it also, but hush, let us not infringe on mother dearest’s right to paranoia.

As of late she’s bought another one of these viewing machines. Seen Billy tweak it a few times while we were doing research. Something like a projector, but with a weird rasterization effect. Something that lets her read newspapers better. And not old ones too.

Time in her personal archive seems to be moving backwards, hurried along by our interest in the long winters. This time, I saw her fiddling with some downright ancient notebook, smelling of crypt and looking positively fluorescent-yellow. Something from the early 1800s, she said. From a Jesuit. One of the first settlers of Clearview. She reprimanded me with a smile when I asked her if there were any of his descendants alive, out of curiosity. Turns out they don’t marry. More weird European religion stuff.

24/5/1975

Speaking of weird religion stuff, today I saw yet another interfaith scuffle. A bunch of those neo-pagans protesting over the right to hold congregation in front of Chapel Street. Tara’s dad was talking with their leader, a thick-limbed brunette, I think a middle-aged teacher from one of the kindergartens? They were standing on the curb while the rest of the protestors marched down the asphalt.

They were actually busy commiserating together, not arguing. Took me a few moments to slow down and listen. The good pastor spotted me then, waved me closer. Thankfully he introduced me as Claire and David’s daughter, and not as Francis’ niece. The woman nodded, a sprightly lady with short brown hair. Plump, red nails, this absurdly well-colored green gauze jacket over a simple shirt, jeans. Kinda-fashionable, not cloyingly “hippy”. Short, though.

She had a really warm smile, and, as I discovered when we shook hands, a real tight grip. We exchanged about a two-three minutes of platitudes such as “No, I went to Mrs. Maupert’s kindergarten” and “Yeah, Francis is still working for Texcanica.” The pastor busied himself by talking to a few other quasi-middle-aged women, all middle-class-looking housewives. Kind of surprising-but-not-really. Some were familiar faces from mom’s yoga class, even.

Once it was clear we were running out of common grounds, Pastor Nick stepped in with grace to steer the conversation in a direction most agreeable. To him. Which apparently involved mentioning his childhood treks with my dad. Well, teenagerhood? Either way, he waved himself closer. “So, I was giving Rose the rundown about the trail churches. Has David told you about them?”

It was rhetorical. Nick smiled, ‘cause of course he did. Most likely to soften the incoming blow of having to listen to the damn story for the uptenth time. Yeah, yeah, you were both real wild in your youth, looking for wooden churches made by pilgrims post-long winter. Real adventurous, especially when a hornery guard dog nearly bit your ankle off. Or when you nearly got tetanus from a rusty barbed wire fence. No wonder he’s so blasè about poochie being bitten in half if this is what he was getting up to at my age.

Rose all but nodded her way through the retelling, with that worried/contrite teacherly look.

But then Nick added some lines I hadn’t heard before. He was glancing down Chapel Street as he spoke, at the wooden facades there. “We went to check on some of them, two years ago. “ He’d dropped the jovial tone. “A third were gone. Cut down during logging operations, or freak accidents.” Like the mudslide?

“Including, well, the mudslide. “ Like the mudslide. Though I’d never seen him hint it was a freak accident. What a strange choice of connections. Nick then cleared his throat. “But still, those that still stand? A testament not only to our forefather’s forbearance, but also to their carpenter skills. “ I wrote this down ‘cause I was reasonably sure he was going to use this in a speech down the line. Or he’d already done so Rose looked downright smitten, pensive as she nodded. “What a loss.”

Five minutes of lamenting the progressive undoing of Clearview’s heritage by CL&M’s cackhanded zoning permits later, and I spotted Janet walking down the road. Took up the occasion, excused myself, and trotted over.

25/5/1975

In hindsight, I shouldn’t have done that.

Janet- Somehow- Didn’t know about the churches. And now she insists we must visit them, to give our research “That much needed pizzaz.” Girl, we got three pages of citations.Who need pizzaz when you’ve got a Mrs. Dartmouth-certified reference to a start-of-the-century newspaper? Not even Brian’s going that much in! And he’s cheating by using some newflanged search function on his terminal. Good grief.

Thankfully there seems to be one fairly close to the burbs. Trail leading up to it is near the creek Tim found Old Bitey in. If that’s not a sign that the damn thing’s been sent by the heavens to bother us, I don’t know what it is.

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Apparently some idiot with a “wicked” sense of humor had our same idea. We spent five minutes trotting up a path that was mostly mud and dirt, Brad, Hannah Janet and I, only to find some downright horror-movie shit. Some joker went and stabbed a kitchen knife in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary that dominated the “church.” Really, more of a pergola that’d seen better days. The statue too.

But it was recognizably a statue of the Virgin. Very European-Italian look, this long flowing reddish-brown cloak, open hands, eyes closed. Unpainted. What’s incredible is that all of this had been chipped out of, I think a whole block of wood? Damn thing must’ve been nearly six feet tall, excluding the pedestal. Which really, was kind of a handful of flat stones covered in dirt.

The detailing was rough, and there were cracks and signs of splintering all over the hands, the cloak. And the face resembled more that of a moai head after God knows how many years of exposure. But again, the mantle was sort of flowing, the fingers well proportioned, if roughened by decades of people touching, rubbing the wood, putting offerings in their grasp. And all the critters paving at said offers.

Our little jokester strung out a necklace between said hands. Animal teeth. ‘Cept they were the fake ones the knick knack shops sell near the park. And nuts, even. Nuts. Not that kind of nuts. Ew, brain. Anyway, they’d left a buncha bandages stained brown near the kitchen knife. Brad picked up all that stuff and threw it in a plastic bag.

We made sure the rest of the area was clean. And, besides some empty beer cans, there really wasn’t much to pick up. The four logs that acted as pews were intact, if slightly misshapen from backside abuse.

Sitting on them, soaking into the silence. Yeah, I think I understand why some folks once chose this as a place of worship. Past the statue there was a slope, covered in birches. Once Upon A Time it must’ve been clear, Brad pointed out. So you could see down into the valley, and, presumably, into CL&M’s logging ops.

I kind of hated myself there. I just couldn’t enjoy the lack of city-sounds, the gentle turning of branches under the breeze. It was just us, nature, an act of faith, and my brain couldn’t stop thinking “Yeah, sure, pretty, but how do we write about this in the research? Me and my friends visited a woodland church, it was real nice.”

So I got up. Started looking around the place, Found this little plaque behind the statue, half-green from exposure, half-buried in soft dirt. From The Hands Faithful Of H.V & The Brothers Carpenters Of The Clearview Lodge, it read. Dated 1929. I called Janet over.

That was the second mistake in as many days.

Writing this entry at Dartmouth’s house. I am scribbling down between a bite of cheesecake and another, while Janet and Mrs. Dart chatter with that obsequious excitement in the living room. On one hand I am glad we won’t have to hoof it out to a bunch of rickety wooden buildings out in the quasi-wilderness. On the other, now apparently “We are on the trail of the mysterious HW.” C’mon, Janet, I thought you got over the Hardy Boys for good.

To-Do-List:

-Renew library card.

-Check library for map of Downtown.

-Alternatively, filch it off mom’s collection.

-Alternatively alternatively, print it off from Dad’s terminal.

-Buy a better pair of walking shoes.

-Buy more cola.

-Buy a better padlock. Ask Carl if I can borrow one of his. Maybe a combination one? Not electronic. For “some reason” I got the feeling Timmy’s willing to put in the hours to learn how to undo that. God, next meeting with De Santis can’t come fast enough.

JANET’S ADDENDUM 1:

For starters, I’ve been thinking this is probably going to end more a la Salem’s Lot than the Hardie Boys. Secondly, don’t you ever trash talk my literary tastes, Ms. Agatha Christie. Thirdly, you will probably hate me for writing in your diary, but you are too busy hogging out on cake to care, are you?

Anyway, don’t worry. I haven’t read the previous entries. I just wanted to say hello, and remind you to install the messaging program on a terminal you’ve access to. I do not care whose; You should’ve got one instead of buying that skirt last year. If it is your dad, you do not even need to lie. You are using it for research, are you not? And we all are on the same CL&M netline plan, so you do not have to worry about rates. If he says no, there is Timothy’s. You are his older sister. Use that authority. REMEMBER TO DO THIS.