The countryside rolled by, small town after small town. Mary and her mother had left the dumpy little community in which they had only spent the day on the far fringe of civilization far behind and were heading somewhere with more opportunity.

The side to side motion of the train caused Mary to drift into a dream where she floated face down on a large body of water. Boulders of every shape and size were strewn across the bottom and appeared to be just a few feet beneath the surface, but when she tried to reach out and touch them, she found the clarity of the water had made the depth deceiving and she was actually in much deeper water than she realized.

Most things which do not have good underpinning and support will start to develop cracks and weaknesses before coming apart. A resourceful person like Mary’s mother, who was attractive and had an understanding of human nature used misdirection and false promises to outsmart people she purposely targeted for financial gain.

Unfortunately her mother’s mode of operation was at best, unstable and when applied as a lifelong vocation had a  high probability of making mistakes. Mistakes could extract heavy tolls and threaten to bring things crashing down around them.

Mary had sensed changes during the past year. It felt like her mother was slipping and small cracks were beginning to form. There was nothing in particular Mary could point to, it was more like a lot of little things which made it harder for her mother to successfully play her dangerous game.

Her mother had a more desperate look now and no longer conveyed the cool confidence she had once possessed. It was clear to Mary that she was struggling and the people she was associating with had a harder edge about them.

After all of the years of being on the road she was starting to show her age. She was still a stunning woman, but just below the surface, Mary detected a weariness which had set-in permanently. Her mother’s disarming smile was forced and the reception from a chosen person of interest was no longer guaranteed or predictable.

Mary could often see a distant look in her mother’s eyes, where she seemed to be looking beyond their present situation, trying to conjure up a better place and time.

Mary woke up as the train arrived at their new destination and she was encouraged by the look and size of the town in the early morning light. It had been built on the shores of a large lake and tidy clapboard houses were aligned in neat rows on land which inclined sharply from the lakes shoreline. There was a church steeple which rose above the buildings in the town center and even at this early hour the streets were alive with activity.

Mary had a good feeling about this place and hoped it was somewhere they would be able to stay on for a while.Never had Mary’s first impressions of a place been so wrong.

Mary’s exterior beauty hid a lot of secrets about her vulnerability and loneliness. Her childhood had been an endless series of moves, creating a foundation of instability. When she was younger, it had just seemed like the way of the world. As Mary grew older, she realized many kids had both a mom and a dad, went to school in clean clothes and did not leave town in the middle of the night on a train.

It was an anxious childhood, never knowing what was next. She adapted to her environment by becoming a good listener and observer of her mother’s behavior. She remained on high alert for signs which would precipitate a change in their situation. She would even limit the amount of things she acquired in any one place and made sure her most important possessions could always be carried in her small tan suitcase.

Mary could remember a few times when her anxiousness had been washed away with the hospitality of a relative or a Christian family wanting to do good works. These were times where Mary and her mother were taken in and became part of a family. This always had the opposite effect on her mother though and Mary could see her become restless after a short time.

Mary had a cherished memory from one of those stays where she and her mother were sitting on wooden swings in the backyard of the home. It was the golden hour of the evening where light obtains a special softness and warmth. Her mother was looking at her sideways with the most beautiful smile she had ever seen. There was an intense feeling of calmness and contentment for Mary in that moment.

Mary would replay that memory hundreds of times in the future when she became scared or unsure of what was next, always trying to reclaim the secure feeling it had evoked.

 

Observations from Grayson Highlands State Park VA.

On Father’s Day I walked quietly with my son Drew among God’s creations, where rough stone pathways crossed green highland meadows, where wild ponies grazed on lush green grasses, where outcroppings were framed against perfect blue skies,

where hawks high above rode invisible air currents, where rhododendron’s decorated with their petals of purple,  where shady patches of forest were scented with evergreen, where thin shafts of sun-light penetrated dense stands of trees,

where moss covered dead-falls transformed forest floors, where cool breezes swept across open fields and where nature’s beauty stretched to the horizon.

Joel walked down a sidewalk of the business district heading in the direction of the lake, He felt a magnetic pull from the town, and understood he was supposed to be here. He sensed shadows of the past around him, hidden behind building facades, in ashes of long ago fires and buried under 100 years of progress.

The missing woman’s story needed to be told and he had been chosen to tell it. The scarce facts rotated in his mind like wheels of a slot machine, never quite lining up. His gut told him something was wrong. He had virtually no information about the mysterious woman but what he knew did not add up.

He learned early in his career to follow the evidence, it would lead to the truth. He avoided forming opinions or constructing scenarios unless supported by evidence. But therein lies his problem, where would new evidence be obtained after 100 years? He had worked thin cases in the past and had an appreciation for the difficulty of establishing new paths to chase.

Joel also knew there were forces beyond his comprehension which had helped him in the past and he was alert to the threads and clues which sometimes channeled through him.

He reached the end of the street and stood looking across the frozen surface of Detroit Lake. The wind stinging his exposed face. He placed his hands on each side of his face to protect his cheeks and felt the two day growth of stubble. He did not want to look away just yet and stared into the distance, trying to imagine the winter storm conditions which were occurring when Mary left the safety of her Hotel.

The Hotel Minnesota where Mary had stayed in December of 1914 had stood on the opposite corner of where Joel was now standing. The hotel burned to the ground the following summer.

Joel had experienced a recurring vision which had been haunting him since he had arrived of a young woman gazing toward him from a distance. She only appeared for a fraction of a second before disappearing into a curtain of white. The backdrop in which the girl appears is  white and only a partial outline of her figure is discernible.

The vision reminds Joel of overexposed film and he tried to freeze the frames in his mind for closer scrutiny. There are dark rounded shapes down low a short distance beyond her figure he can not identify. Her black cap, dark eyes and lips contrast starkly with her white surroundings and the soft symmetry of her face is both youthful and expressionless.

The girl is too far away for Joel to know if she is looking at him, but he always has a feeling of helplessness when she leaves.

The room was pitch black, and the only thing Mary could see was a thin line of light under her bedroom door. She was wide awake, curled up on her side and facing the door from under the covers. She stared at the crack of light until it started to blur and become animated within her vision, expanding and contracting in size and shape.

The rest of the house was quiet and the tension of listening and watching the light kept her motionless. The light turned into a star and diamond pattern, like sunlight reflecting off the surface of a lake.

Mary imagined herself floating on water and felt the gentle swells moving her side to side. Her head laid back, her ears partially submerged, caused  sounds to become muffled and distant. The motion of the water relaxed her mind.

She saw herself floating on the surface from above and hundreds of flashing reflections surrounded her body. Her night shirt unbuttoned at the bottom exposed  her mid-section where droplets of water ran across her taught stomach and down her sides into the clear lake.

There was a small wooden dock nearby and the swells breaking on the support piers made a hollow walloping sound which was getting louder and closer. She tried to raise her head to look and when she opened her eyes she was floating right below the dock where a silhouette of a man stared down at her.

She squinted from the bright sunlight behind him and the light turned into a  bare bulb hanging low in the hallway with the mans silhouette framed in  her open bedroom door. He moved quickly into her room closing the door, and plunging the room into blackness.

Mary tried not to breathe and felt a vibration of movement close to her face before feeling a pressure which pulled her covers off, the material slipping through her clenched fists with ease. She jerked her head violently away from the door and her forehead pressed against something cold.

Mary woke from the dream with her head against the train car window. She was disoriented like a small child on the first day of school. Her knuckles white from clutching the shabby blanket she had found in the overhead compartment.

She looked out her window and tried to shake-off the dream, and couldn’t help noticing the stark contrast of her dark dream with the brilliant sunshine and pine forests passing just outside her compartment.

Joel was greeted with a familiar roasted coffee smell when he crossed the threshold into Starbucks from the hotel lobby. The inviting space, designed to look old, had distressed wooden floors and large square columns clad in rustic wood. Each column held beveled mirrors creating interesting reflections and angles within the space.

The seating area was bigger than most Starbucks he had been in and customers were already tucked away in nooks and corners on leather couches and recliners, their faces bathed in an unflattering blueish white light from their electronic devices.

Pictures hanging on the walls were historic photos of the local area. One large framed sepia tone print behind the counter showed an elevated view of the Delvin Lakes train depot, women along the platform wore long dresses and most men were in suits. The picture looked to be from the early 20^th century when people still dressed up to travel. A cloud of steam could be seen curling up from beneath the locomotive.

Joel’s attention was drawn to another print hanging above a rack of branded coffee mugs. He was surprised to be looking at a scene from his childhood. The picture pre-dated Joel, but the photographer had taken the picture from the lake, just the way Joel and his brothers would have seen it from their small fishing boat.

The scene was of the old Delvin Lakes Ice Works. The Ice Works were not in operation when Joel and his brothers would run their boat onto the sandy shore to explore the grounds 40 years ago. The ruins they had played in apparently bore a close resemblance to the actual operation though, and it looked at the time as if the workers just walked away leaving the operation intact.

The ruins, when Joel was a child, reminded him of a wooden roller-coaster. The tram-way rose from the lake shore at a steep angle to an elevation of 10 to 15 feet and then maintained that elevation spanning several hundred feet across the grounds, ending near the rail lines. Presumably ice blocks would have been loaded into rail-cars bound for distant cities or put onto flatbed trucks and taken to a warehouse and packed in saw-dust.

The Ice Works were an irresistible playground for Joel and his brothers and he could remember climbing the tram-way and exploring the grounds for hours. There were old rusted motors, steel cables and dozens of other mechanical devices of every imaginable configuration strewn about the grounds. It had been a simpler time where kids, their environment and imagination created adventure.

Joel ordered his usual Grande Latte and found a small round table with a bench seat against a side wall. He watched the locals file in from the street shaking off the bitter cold morning while visitors in short sleeve shirts entered from the hotel lobby acting like winter did not exist in their world. Everybody was on the same mission, looking for a caffeine fix.

Somebody had left a copy of the Delvin Lakes Chronical on the far end of the bench and Joel scanned the headlines of the page.

There was an interesting headline in the lower right bottom which read, “Four Local Boys Report Strange Light from Lake.” Joel reached over and picked up the paper to take a closer look.

According to the article, four boys from Delvin Lakes had ventured onto the ice around 5:30 PM from the skating rink warming house located just below his hotel this past Friday night. According to the boy’s they had kept relatively close to the shore-line on their adventure and at some point had encountered a strange blue green light emanating from the ice. In northern climates during December, daylight is gone by 4:30 PM so Joel knew it was dark when they had set out on their adventure.

A boy named Jeff Brody, who was the spokesperson for the group in the article, said “the light was not really shining out of the ice but more like within the ice creating an aura which seemed to float a couple of feet above the ice from a distance.”

When the boys had reached the spot, they had peered into the thick ice and were unable to discern the source of the light but then Derick Shaffer, a 12 year old and the youngest in the group began to yell and point at the ice, I saw a face, I saw a face, he repeated several times and he jumped around in a tight circle above the spot pointing down. The other boys rushed to where he pointed and  were not able to see anything except the strange light.

Officials at the Sheriff’s department dismissed the incident as an attempt by the boys to keep the local “Lady of the Ice” legend alive. Joel had never heard of the legend, but was intrigued by the description written about the light. In Joel’s experience, small details which the boys had recounted were often overlooked when someone was making up a lie.

The last paragraph was about the approximate location of the sighting and the article had a small Google map inset from a screen capture with a hand drawn circle supposedly on the spot. The boys told authorities they were near the warehouse district of town.

The light had apparently faded less shortly after they arrived over it, and when gone, left the boys standing on the vast blackness of the frozen lake.

Joel looked back at the map and decided he would like to take a look at the area for himself.

The warehouse district only encompassed a couple of city blocks and was at the end of town where houses became spread out and more rural as Shore Road moved away from the lake and turned into something else.

It was still early morning and the drive from the hotel was just under two miles. Joel pulled his car which was not yet warm on the inside next to a rusted chain-link fence surrounding a drab metal building and got out.

The cold tumbled from the leaden sky and permeated every inch of his body. The sky was pressing toward the ground and there was a feeling of snow in the crisp air. He looked toward a narrow swath of horizon where pale pink and purple ribbons of light were visible between the metal buildings and it reminded him of better times and warmer days from his past.

He stared for a minute into the light, trying to imagine it was warm sunshine, when a sharp horn from Shore Road brought him back into his cold reality.

The land in between the lakes shoreline and the edge of the road was thin at this location and could not have been more than a few feet in width. Joel crossed the two lane road and navigated the small decline to step onto the ice, he shuffled his feet to keep his balance on the ice and moved several yards out onto the frozen lake.

Joel had no idea what he was looking for, and now that he was completely exposed, a cold wind  cut through his inadequate clothing making his whole body go into an involuntarily shiver. He stared out at the ice and tried to picture what the boys may have seen. His first inclination was a reflection caused by the Aurora Borealis otherwise known as the Northern Lights, but the likelihood of seeing it in the ice and not in the sky while standing in the open on a frozen lake seemed far-fetched.

Joel turned back from the open ice and shuffled back toward the shoreline. He already had plans to visit the Sheriff’s department today, letting them know he was in town investigating the hundred year old missing person case of Mary Benton. He hoped the meeting went well, and that he could count on their cooperation.

He was puzzled about what the boys may have seen on the ice on that dark night, but decided he needed to put it on the back burner and get on with the real investigation which had brought him back to Delvin Lakes after all these years.

Tommy Hanson had been afraid of the dark for as long as he could remember. His bedroom, in the basement of his parents Midwestern home presented a challenge for his fear. It was not acceptable behavior in those days to leave lights on in a room if you were the last one leaving it, so when Tommy switched the lights off, it cast the whole basement into a murky blackness.

It was only a few feet from his bedroom door to a staircase leading to the kitchen, but for Tommy, who imagined ghostly arms reaching for him, it might as well have been a mile-long dark tunnel.

Once he reached the staircase, he could sense apparitions close behind him and knew at any second they would reach out in the blackness to wrap their skeletal hands around his neck or grab his shirt collar and drag him back into their ghostly realm.

Tommy would scramble up the stairs as fast as he could, leaning close-in and using his hands and feet like climbing a ladder.

The staircase had one landing with a 180 degree turn and five additional steps to a door which Tommy would burst through like police on a drug raid and then attempt to regain his composure if his mom was in the kitchen.

Tommy was tall for 13 and fortunately for him, other kids equated his stature with toughness and mostly left him alone. That was ok with him, he was not much of a scrapper any way. His real talent lay in daydreaming which he practiced whenever he could. The classroom was his favorite venue but did not help his grades.

The fear of ghosts in his basement was no-match for Tommy’s newest fear. He had inherited a morning paper route from his older brother a few months earlier and in Midwest cities, in the 60’s and 70’s, morning papers were delivered in the middle of the night while most kids Tommy’s age were sound asleep.

The job of being a paper-boy was sold to kids by parents and newspaper companies as a way to build character, teach responsibility and earn cold hard cash. It was an avenue for kids with limited earning opportunities, but for Tommy, it was more like survival.

Tommy would get up at 4:30 in the morning and drag himself half-asleep down to a distribution point which newspaper companies referred to as paper-shacks. The shack, a small metal building with a wood burning stove, was usually located in an alley or other non-conspicuous place so as not to be an eyesore to the general population.

The papers were bundled tight with steel wire and required a cutter to break free. Tommy along with the other poor kids whose parents had bought into the scheme would meet each morning to claim their bundles. If you did not arrive on time, the shack would be closed and your papers would be unceremoniously thrown onto the dirt and gravel of the alley without any regard for what the weather might be doing.

For Tommy, never getting enough sleep coupled with the physical exertion of delivering 80 newspapers on foot, paled in comparison to the nervousness he felt each morning about the final delivery on his route.

His route was mostly a straight shot down a residential street which stretched for a mile or so before it dead-ended into a lake.

The source of Tommy’s apprehension was a large old home-built facing the lake where the street ended. Homes on the lake tended to be mansions and had large privacy fences built of cement, iron or stone. The houses were on over-sized lots and setback from sidewalks to ensure privacy for their wealthy owners.

The house and grounds of this particular mansion occupied two lots which were back to back and the entire property had a six-foot cement and stucco wall around its perimeter matching the ugly brown color of the house. The home was situated near the front of the lot closest to the lake to maximize its views.

There was a narrow arched opening in the side wall facing the street Tommy traversed. The opening had a built-in iron gate and conformed to the contours of the arch. At the top of the Iron Gate, two thin pieces of iron had been twisted together and forged into a point which hung down from the frame. It reminded Tommy of a dagger blade and he always glanced apprehensively up when passing under it.

There were signs about the house and grounds suggesting the owners had come upon hard times or had just gotten too old to keep the place up. Tommy had never met them, and in fact had never seen a soul on the property or any movement within the house.

In winter when leaves were absent and the ground had a layer of snow, remnants of a large cement pond could be seen from the path leading to the back entrance. The pond had been long abandoned and was covered over with vines. Tommy tried to imagine the space with groomed garden paths, lush grassy areas and laughing children but its gloomy reality seeped-in and stole the vision.

The overgrown area of the grounds extended several hundred feet from the rear of the house toward the back perimeter where trees, shrubs and  vines were aggressively reasserting their claim on the land.

On the morning of June 22, 1971 Tommy emerged from his slumber at 4:30 am, and after dressing, left his home quietly by the side door. He noticed the morning was especially dark. He did not realize it at the time, but the darkness was caused by the phase of the moon. The New Moon phase meant for all intents and purposes there would be no visible moon that morning.

In addition to the darkness there was a strange warm wind sporadically rushing between the elm trees lining the boulevards. The wind would dissipate as suddenly as it started, leaving slow swaying branches in its wake. The elms formed a cathedral type arch high above the street and on a moonless night such as this, added another level of darkness.

Lively shadows moved across objects illuminated by corner street lamps and every blackened window seemed to be watching Tommy as he walked with a heightened alertness, his mind already dreading the prospect of delivering a paper to the old lake house on such a morning as this.

He could only imagine the horror of navigating its narrow pathway through overgrown trees and shrubs from the arched gate to back door steps where a dim yellow bulb seemed to be perpetually on.

There was something not quite right about the house and property and Tommy could feel a presence after crossing through its gate; he was not alone. Someone or something watched his every step. He would feel the presence behind him the strongest and this feeling grew more intense the closer he came to the house.

Once he placed the paper on the landing of the back entry steps, he needed every bit of courage to turn back around, he had no doubt a figure would be waiting for him at the bottom of the steps.

Tommy tried to talk himself out of his fear but it was to no avail, his arm and neck hairs automatically stood on-end and a pressing fear would set upon him each morning as he walked cautiously through the gate.

When Tommy arrived at the paper shack, he was grateful for the company of a few other Paperboy’s who were standing around talking. He knew it was a brief respite from the solitary task which lie ahead.

After loading his papers in two large yellow sacks with padded straps, Tommy hoisted the first sack up on his back and put the padded strap across his forehead to support its weight, the second sack was placed in front of Tommy so he could pull the papers as needed, the strap intersecting the first strap at the back of his neck.

The first couple of blocks were physically challenging with a full load of papers and each house delivered lightened his load marginally and provided motivation to press-on. Most of Tommy’s customers preferred their paper out of the elements which forced him to walk across yards, up-stairs and onto dark porches and landings in order to put papers inside of storm doors or under mats.

It was a morning full of dark shadows where even familiar objects somehow looked unnatural. Each corner where streets and avenues intersected, street lamps created welcome pools of light which for Tommy, were small islands of safety.

Tommy had unconsciously quickened his pace with his deliveries, not wanting to linger in dark corners or closed-in areas between houses, but as a result he was quickly approaching the dreaded source of his fear. His first glimpse of the lake house property from the preceding block reminded him of a large black hole in the earth beyond the wall.

Tommy did not walk on the sidewalk next to the wall, he stayed on the opposite side of the street until he was even with the arched gate before crossing over. Today he stared at the blackness beyond the gate before crossing and a shiver ran up his spine.

The warm wind had picked up and was blowing inland from the lake, every tree and shrub was alive with motion and sound.

Tommy forced himself to cross the street and instinctively pushed the spring loaded latch allowing the Iron Gate to swing inward. He peered into the blackness and could just make out the faint yellow light which appeared to be flickering as low branches intermittently crossed his line of sight.

When Tommy stepped inside the gate, blackness enveloped him and he could not remember a time where he had only been able to see a few feet in front of him on the path. He knew the curves and rise of the stone path by heart but his fear was causing disorientation and his steps were timid and unsure.

Tommy felt a thin layer of perspiration on his face, but did not dare wipe it with his sleeve for fear his concentration of peering into the darkness would be broken. He could feel the uncomfortable presence of someone or something close to him and today it seemed to move all around him, protected by the  darkness.

He pushed forward and his fear grew with each step. The feeling of dread was nearly unbearable and a small internal voice was telling him his worst fears were about to be realized.

A low rumble of thunder rolled across the property from the direction of the lake and was followed by a gust of wind which caused branches to reach out and brush against his bare arms. He could now see his destination and the dim bulb cast just enough light for him to make out the stairs and door of the back entry. There was a small clearing between the end of the stone path and the steps and he moved across it rapidly.

Tommy reached the steps and took them two at a time, propelled forward by his fear and feeling a desperate need to remove himself from the property. He was contemplating a dangerous mad dash down the dark path after dropping the paper but an audible gasp escaped him when he turned and was greeted by a set of glowing eyes from the clearing.

A statue could not have stood in-place with any more precision than Tommy was now standing. His forward motion frozen in mid-step belied the thoughts racing through his mind. The glowing eyes were too close to the ground to be human.

A flash of lightning over the lake provided a just enough illumination for Tommy to make out the silhouette of a large German shepherd with its head held low.

Every tale of wild vicious dogs, the smell of fear and the proper way to act in an aggressive situations went through his mind in a fraction of a second, but none of it was practical. Tommy could not physically move and if fear was going to prompt an attack he figured he was as good as dead.

The eyes moved across the clearing and the creature stopped at the bottom of the steps staring up at Tommy with teeth bared while emitting a low growl which could just be heard between the low rumblings of thunder.

The outside world ceased to exist for Tommy, His vision narrowed and the creature’s unbreakable stare along with his fear of a violent attack occupied his whole being.

He had never seen this dog before and the way it had appeared out of nowhere made him wonder if it had been living among the trees and brambles all along and could be the presence he had always felt.

The perception of time was suspended and each second stretched like a slow motion scene during the stand-off.  Something started to change for Tommy and his fear was slowly turning to anger. He had been pushed into a corner and was tired of being afraid. He looked around for anything within his reach to use in his defense but found nothing.

He noticed when he looked back at the dog, its stance and demeanor had changed and it looked away  toward the back perimeter as if hearing something of more interest before turning back to look at Tommy. It was no longer growling and seemed less interested in him.

Tommy still did not feel like he could move but he willed his mind to push himself forward. He took a small step toward the edge of the landing and the initial motion was enough to regain his momentum to navigate the stairs. The dog looked sideways toward the overgrowth and moved a few feet away from the steps into the clearing as Tommy approached the bottom steps.

It was if the dog and Tommy had an unspoken understanding as they passed within a few feet of each other in the clearing on that strange dark morning. The dog stood at a sideways angle to Tommy and looked straight ahead, as if saying I see you and you are allowed to proceed.

Tommy had tapped into an inner strength he did not know existed within him and instinctively knew something had changed forever.

When he emerged from the gate onto the sidewalk he saw the first faint hint of dawn on the horizon and knew for him it would truly be a new day.

Joel sat perfectly still. The only sound in the room was the labored breathing of the old man he had come to visit and some voices from the hallway that sounded far away and disinterested. The sunlight slanting in through the partially open blinds of the old nursing home danced patterns on the wall just above the brass headboard which had been painted white but now was chipped, adding to the desolate feel of the room.

Joel was disappointed his trip had been a waste of time but it seemed like his new normal. He leaned forward in his chair to stand up when his attention was drawn to the lone picture on the old man’s night stand. He stood and made his way across the room stopping at the foot of the bed momentarily before moving alongside the bed toward the stand. Joel kept an eye on the sleeping figure as he leaned down to pick up the picture. The side of the man’s face was an unhealthy grey covered in stubble; a dried white stain could be seen around his lower lip. The man’s breathing was less labored now but his eyes were moving rapidly beneath his heavily creased lids.

Joel picked up the picture and studied the faces of the young men standing side by side in front of a large estate he recognized from Front Street. It was a second frozen in time and as he tried to read their expressions a sudden chill ran through his body. Joel brought the photo closer to his face and stared intently at the second story window of the house behind the wrought-iron fence. It was there, almost buried in the graininess of the old black and white photo. A face in the shadows, hauntingly staring back at him. Joel said half aloud to himself “what are you dreaming about old man, what are you dreaming about.”

The picture frame was old and of good quality judging by its weight and patina, and if he had to guess would say made out of silver. He turned the frame over and looked at the faded felt backing. Three metal swivels held the backing to the frame, one was broken and he could tell from the worn felt around the others that the backing had been removed many times.

Joel slid the three good swivels clear of the backing and placing one hand on the felt turned the frame over releasing the backing and picture from the frame. He quietly set the empty frame back onto the stand before inspecting the photograph. There appeared to be some type of marking along the bottom right edge of the picture which had been covered by the frame. Joel slid the photo up slightly so that he could lift it by the edge separating it from the backing. As soon as he lifted the photo a small square piece of laced fabric slid toward the edge of the backing and nearly fell to the floor.

The lace was black and had a floral design with bold dark lines outlining the edges of the flowers and leaves. A delicate almost transparent netting style weave between the patterns held the designs together. The piece was cut or torn from something larger because three edges were uneven and frayed. The remaining edge had uniformity and a smooth curve which hinted at what the item may have originally been.

The fabric had been handled a lot and in a couple places the darker patterns were nearly as transparent as the netting. Joel gingerly picked up the fabric and held it up to the light of the window across the room. The worn area  looked like it had been caused by someone holding the fabric between thumb and forefinger.  Joel lined his finger and thumb up with the worn area and it nearly matched the wear pattern. Why was this piece of fabric important enough to hide in a picture frame Joel wondered?

Joel stood silently for a minute and listened for any activity in the hallway outside the room before leaving and making his way down the deserted hall to the staircase. It was almost 4:00 PM and he needed to find a place to stay but wanted to get a look at the old man’s chart before he left. He had observed one nurses station on the main floor just inside the main entrance. The young girl at the station had been looking at her phone when Joel arrived and she had given him the room number for Mr. Williams without making any further inquiries as to who Joel might be.

Joel stopped at the top of the stairway to listen for voices. Hearing nothing he descended the stairs rapidly and started walking across the marble tile toward the station at a swift pace. He watched the girl as he approached and when she looked up he glanced at his watch and simultaneously quickened his pace. When he looked back up from his watch, the girl was sitting up straight in her chair watching him approach.

When Joel reached the counter he asked her for her name. “Melody” she said with an inflection that made it sound like a question. Joel said in an even tone “Melody, I am Dr. Gibbons from Minneapolis and I have an urgent appointment back in the cities, I need to look at the current medications being given to Mr. Williams.” Melody looked almost relieved because she knew exactly where that information could be found and practically sprinted to the file cabinet to retrieve the file. She placed the thick folder on the counter and returned to her seat. Joel turned to the face-sheet and made some quick mental notes from the information, thanked the girl and left.

A winter sky threatening snow is as unmistakably predictable for a person living in a northern climate as someone in Florida predicting an afternoon thunderstorm.

On November 30, 1909 in Delvin Lakes, Minnesota the threat had been building all day and the sky at 4:00 pm seemed low enough to reach out and touch.

Shortly after 4:00 pm the first large flakes floated lightly toward earth, taking their time before settling on fence posts, bird-feeders, dirt roads or any other random place exposed to the elements.

There is a feeling of relief when snow finally begins to fall, the oppressive sky produces something of beauty, covering the landscape in a pristine blanket of white.

Every few minutes during the 1909 storm, the amount of snow falling increased and a person paying attention would have suspected they were in the midst of a significant winter event.

After the first hour it was if an artist had painted the top of everything with a brush stroke of white. There was no depth to the accumulation and objects retained their form, but in the next 10 hours only the largest structures would still be recognizable.

Visibility was still reasonable, even as the volume of  falling snow increased. The snow moved in a mostly vertical pattern in the calm air. A person walking along Main Street looking skyward near a street lamp would surely have been impressed by the millions of illuminated flakes invading from above.

At 6:00 PM, two hours into the storm winds started to pick up and curtains of snow would suddenly move in one direction, reverse directions and then swirl around in a disorienting pattern. Familiar forms were losing their edges and becoming part of the flat white landscape.

The quietness among the storms chaos was deafening and the more snow that accumulated the quieter it became. The thick blanket absorbed all noise except for the ssssssss sound of ice crystals sliding across the top of the accumulation pushed by sudden gusts.

On Front Street the wind blew at a steadier rate across the wide open expanse of Delvin Lake. Large quantities of snow were being displaced from the surface, easily sliding on the black ice and piling up at an alarming rate on the banks below the dirt road.

At 8:00 pm, approximately 6 inches of snow had fallen and one of the first indications people in Delvin Lakes had about the severity of the storm was when the regularly scheduled 7:45 train from Fairview did not arrive. The station master in Delvin Lakes was informed the train was held in Fairview so as not to get stranded in the 50 miles of wilderness between the towns.

A person standing on Front Street at 8:00 PM looking toward the lake would have seen a total white-out, and that same person would have disappeared from sight if they were to have taken a mere 10 steps out onto the ice.

The drifts on the banks of the lake gained height and were approaching the same elevation as Front Street. Large gusts would blow the tops off the drifts sending what looked like small avalanches careening down Main Street, accumulating against any obstacle in their path.

Delvin Lakes Hotel was one of those obstacles and its six-foot brick wall forming its perimeter facing the lake already had a snow drift which ran its block long length and half its six foot height.

The only business on Main Street showing any signs of life was Jack’s Tavern located three blocks down Main Street on the right hand side. A few hardcore regulars were entrenched inside and had justified their presence as a better place to be than their own homes. The light reflecting out onto the snow-covered street from the mullioned windows of the establishment looked like a Christmas card from a distance.

Eerie moans could be heard intermittently as wind gusts rushed across exposed pipes or other openings turning them into temporary instruments in a creepy symphony.

Snow fell, edges softened, objects transformed into shapeless forms before disappearing under the pristine white.

Somewhere in the distance the sound of a shovel scraping against a sidewalk could be heard. Someone had apparently become impatient with the onslaught of snow and decided to clear a path from their door or maybe a walkway in front of a business, not realizing it would be several days before anyone would be able to move around town with any semblance of efficiency.

Fresh snow permeated every inch of Delvin Lakes on the morning after the storm. Roads had been transformed into wide swaths of smooth white only identifiable if running between homes, buildings or stands of trees.

Only two colors remained in Delvin Lakes the morning after the storm, the deep blue of a cloudless sky and a white so bright it hurt your eyes to look at it.

The blanket of snow had become a great leveler, small hills, valleys and holes in the earth had been filled in and smoothed out so only slight undulations in the surface could now be seen. Snow drifts were of every shape and size, the wind acting as a sculptor had shaped the angles, ridges and slopes of each.

It would be hard to imagine a scene more beautiful than the snow laden landscape of Delvin Lakes on that historic winter morning, but under all of that beauty lie the real life and death struggles townspeople now faced in digging out from such a mammoth storm.