Close to a large forest there lived a young woman…
No, let me start again.
It wasn’t a forest. It was a city park near the waterfront … with weeping willows, a beach, and a children’s playground. There were walking trails, too, that used to be popular with all kinds of folks. These days, though, it was mostly only the “residents” of the park who came here.
The woman wasn’t young. She had to be at least fifty. She lived in the park under a tarp held up by giant recycling bins and pieces of lumber she’d stolen from the neighbourhood. Or “borrowed”, as she liked to say. She’d accidentally burned down her last tent and was waiting for another one to be donated.
One day, she was stumbling along the sidewalk and spotted the Glow. It was purple and pink and about the size and shape of a man’s body and it just hovered in the air a few inches off the ground, in front of a boring apartment building.
She’d seen the Glow before, in the same spot, but had always ignored it. Nothing good comes from following things like that, she thought.
But this day, she was feeling sorry for herself—even more than she usually was. She hadn’t been able to sell anything (or anyone) and therefore was missing her special medicine.
So, when she saw the Glow, she decided to walk towards it. And then she walked into it.
Immediately, things started getting freaky. She’d seen visions before but this was unreal. The walls of the apartment building disintegrated in front of her eyes. For a second, she saw a flash of concrete and metal rods and heard clanging and drilling and men yelling at each other. Then, as if she was watching a movie, she saw a pile of stone and brick rubble appear. Finally, the last image firmed up and she was standing in front of a brick building with three stories, multiple gables, and fancy wooden trim. A stone staircase led up to the front doors. A sign on the wall read: House of Refuge. Without thinking, she walked up the steps and stood on the landing, too afraid to knock.
Suddenly, the door swung open and revealed a short, stout girl dressed in a floor-length gown with an apron and cap that looked like it might be a costume for a play set in the last century.
“Yes?” the girl demanded. “Well? What do you want?” When the woman didn’t answer – speech seemed to have abandoned her – the girl repeated, “Yes? Who sent you?”
When the woman still said nothing, the girl sighed and said, “Alright, then, you can’t speak. Or won’t? Well, come along, you’re lucky, we have a bed. Someone died last night. I’ll take you to Mrs. Sturdy. She’s the house superintendent. She decides who can live here and who can’t. You look like a good candidate … I have to ask, though. Where did you get those clothes?!”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This story was inspired by a building called the House of Refuge that used to stand near the waterfront at the foot of John Street in Hamilton, Canada. It was one of several buildings set aside for the poor in the early days of the city.
Guylaine Spencer’s fiction has been published in The New Canadian Stories Magazine, CommuterLit and Literally Stories. Website: https://guylainespencer.wordpress.com
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