The Haunt by A. L. Barker

expect I’ll see you again.’
    ‘Reckon I’ll be busy packing tomorrow morning.’
    ‘Goodbye, Ernie.’ She held out her hand.
    He gave her the key of the garden door. ‘You can lock up behind me. But watch out someone else doesn’t climb in through the tree.’
    He was halfway across the garden when she said, ‘That’swhere he died.’ Ernie turned to find her close behind him. ‘Koenig,’ she said, ‘in that tree.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘He was shot down, his parachute caught in the branches. He hung there three days and nights, he couldn’t free himself, both his arms were broken. I think he must have had internal injuries as well, he bled so much. He cried, every time I went to him he cried, pleading, like a child to its mother.’
    Ernie couldn’t speak. He told himself, You don’t speak when you’re dreaming, when you have a nightmare your tongue’s tied.
    She said, ‘I didn’t tell anybody he was there. The beach was mined and the creek fenced off with barbed wire, so no one came this way. I left him to die. After the atrocities he and his kind committed should I have had pity? I hardened my heart, my heart was like a stone. And then we bombed Dresden, thousands of women and children were slaughtered and that beautiful city was razed to the ground. I thought enough is enough, one more is too much, and I went out to him. It was too late, he had strangled in the cords of his parachute.’
    The sun beating down made Ernie feel sick. He couldn’t make it to the shade of the oak tree.
    She said, ‘After he was gone, I picked up the diary which had fallen from his pocket. When at last they found him I pretended I hadn’t known he was there. They accepted that. But I don’t want you in that tree ever again.’ With her finger she lifted a bead of sweat from his cheek. ‘The evil those men did lives on in all of us. Even in you, blameless child.’
    When she died she left the house in trust to Ernie. He did not change the name; he rather fancied ‘Bayview’, but ‘Bellechasse’ was classier for a hotel.
    *
    Elissa said she’d asked her neighbours to tea.
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why not?’
    Owen shrugged. He had mixed reactions: for a man in his position the mixture was unethical. When Elissa said, ‘I’d like to know her better,’ he was tempted to ask why again. She said, ‘Shall I make a chocolate fudge cake for the boy?’
    Seeing her and Angela Hartop in close proximity with each other was disorientating. Angela had dressed for an occasion, though, as Elissa remarked later, it was scarcely a teatime one. She wore a black dress with chunky gold jewellery at neck and wrists. Her hair, pulled up through a bandeau, spilled over in fiery ringlets. Elissa, as familiar to him as his own self, lost her place in his world. It was temporary, but for an unappreciable time he seemed not to have a world at all. It took several cups of tea to restore it.
    ‘Where’s James?’ said Elissa.
    ‘Watching television.’
    ‘I made a cake for him.’
    ‘I never could cook. Greville used to say my custard was a killer.’
    ‘Shall I cut you a piece? Then you might like to take the rest of it back to James.’
    ‘How kind you are.’ She ate her cake with enjoyment, accepted another slice and pinched up the crumbs. ‘Isn’t itreally weird – this will turn into me but the rest will turn into James.’
    ‘Does he mind being left?’ was the nearest Elissa could get to a reprimand.
    ‘He doesn’t take after his father.’ Angela seemed to think that was answer enough. ‘I loved my husband.’ Owen thought he detected a note of challenge. ‘We were so happy, the three of us. Greville was always bringing presents for James and me, it was his delight to surprise us. James has a cupboard full of toys his father bought him. I can’t bear to see him playing with them, I’ve locked them away. Greville brought me jewellery. I remember how he loved to deck me in it. I can’t wear any of it now. I buried