2021-06-08 - A Fine and Private Place

And here's Ravn Abildgaard, handling two issues at once because multi-tasking is clearly not just for girls. Whether Isi ever wanted to find herself dragged deeper into Gray Harbor's very unique approach to local legend is up for debate; but she's here, and she shines, and stuff has already happened to her twice in one month, so as far as the folklorist is concerned, this woman needs to have some blanks filled in. 'Run away from things with too many teeth' is logical; he doesn't need to tell her that. 'Avoid all the interesting, scenic places' on the other hand -- not so much. Also, the Muriel issue. He's got a lead here on the girl's story. A perfect opportunity to handle two delicate affairs in one go. Nothing can go wrong here, right?

Everything can go wrong, and Ravn has not forgotten his one previous visit to this church. Everything went fine for about three minutes, after which two people were shot and one stabbed. He's got strong, European opinions about gun control and yet he's tucked that little piece Seth Monaghan gifted him into a pocket real quiet. Just in case. St Mary's is one of those interesting, scenic places. A phone call and an invitation with a strong subtext later, the Dane is wandering into the church with Isi in tow while mulling in his head on how exactly to explain to her that this is not at all about architecture and very much about actually, you need to stay the hell away from a lot of things but you're here and you won't so let's do this.

"I'm looking into a bit of local history that may have some influence on some of the stranger things that happen here," he explains as the two walk up. "A ghost story as it happens -- but every story has a core of truth. This ghost plays some kind of key role in some of the strangeness that I am trying to establish, and knowing more about her can only help. So I dug through town hall records -- and I'm pretty certain I've got the right girl. Muriel Vernon, born to a parent listed only as C.A., adopted out, dead at age ten sometime around 1940. Buried here. I want to know who this C.A. was -- presumably an Addington -- and I want to know everything I can find out about Muriel. Because Muriel is very much around still. I've met her. I'm trying to find out what her motivation is."

The Dane shakes his head a little. "Gray Harbor. Lived here eleven months now, and I'm only scratching the surface. The thing that happened in the woods, with the woods being haunted? These families -- Baxter and Addington -- are the cause. Everything I can find out might help some day put an end to it."

The chances of Isi ever stepping into this church of her own free will? Zilch. She may have done some walking from her culture's path, but not quite this far!

Humoring Ravn though? That has become a habit. (So hourly HE doesn't grow teeth and bite her or whatever.) She trails after him only half listening to his words. He eyes are taking in the joint with the air of a tourist seeing something new.

The 'I've met her' percolates down and jars her back to the moment with much blinking. "You are being haunted by a little girl? That is awkward. Do little girl ghosts like, know everything since they died or just a perpetual state of childness because if so, daaammmnnn. What do you mean the Baxter and Addington stuff?"

One of the men helping move things around pauses, a hand on a pew, heavy dark eyebrows raised. "You guys here to help stow, or did you need one of--" He jerks his head towards Father Dean, who's chatting with two young man that have wrestled the piano onto a dolly.

The man addressing them is almost certainly one of the aforementioned helpers; he's sporting some WSU sweats and is maybe 35 at best. Black hair and beard, brown-green, deep set eyes in an angular face, pale skin that probably goes red in real sun.

"I'm not, but the town is," Ravn murmurs to Isi even as the stow-away (1) is approaching. "I'm trying to find out what she actually wants. The Baxters and the Addingtons are the founding families of Gray Harbor -- they have had a kind of feud going on since the nineteenth century, and most of the weirdness here can be traced back to them in some capacity or other. Local legend has Muriel painted as the love child of a Baxter and an Addington, and for all we know, that actually matters somehow."

(1) Yes. I went there.

He offers the man a polite smile. "We're here to look for a specific old grave and maybe ask some questions about it, but I don't think either of us will die from giving you guys a hand. Tell us what you need us to put where?" The Dane is a bit out of his usual domain as well; born in a Lutheran country with only a very small Roman Catholic minority, and somewhat secular minded in the first place, he's a stranger here as well. "Ravn Abildgaard -- I'm the resident Danish expat and folklore nerd. Good to meetcha."

"A kid haunting a town possibly because the wrong two people did the horizontal mambo. Yeah, that checks out." Isi mutters under her breath as Ravn talks to the worker, laying the sarcasm think to herself. A shake of her head.

"What?" Pulled back to the moment as she is volunteered into service. "Oh, yeah, sure? Just point to what needs moved and where to put it." She spares a glance at the piano that speaks volumes of 'for the sake of your God please don't say that.'

There's no mistaking it; this guy is eyeing both of them. Probably because, like them, he has Glimmer. He's a little brighter than they are, but Itzhak Rosencrantz this man is not.

He nods slowly, like a person who Understands. "Well, the padre's the best person for the graves. I just came by because my mom guilted me into it."

He sees Isi's glance, shakes his head. "Oh, no, not that. Piano's taken care of." He nods towards the room he was heading into. "A lot of old books and records in here we need to move--they're in cardboard boxes, someone's offered to stow them on her second floor. Truck around back to load them into."

Everyone's a little brighter than Ravn; most people are a fair deal brighter -- at least if we're talking about the shine. He lights up in a small grin. "Well, we came here to look at records -- so moving them to higher ground seems like a good start, hard to read the bloody things if they're turned into wet pulp. Let us at 'em -- and then we can catch the priest when he's got a free moment." He makes a gesture as if rolling up his sleeves (which would be a lot easier to actually do if he took his leather jacket off first).

When the other man's attention wanders he manages a murmur to Isi: "Muriel guards a large number of ghosts that are directly tied to how big the tear in the Veil here is. What we don't know is whether she's trying to open the tear wider, or close it."

Thumbs up. Isi can DO THIS THING. She sticks to Ravn's side here and moves where he does until pointed at a box she can heft up. Forgiver if she bipasses the first one - did they load bricks in there instead of books?!

There is a tiny incline of her head at the information about Muriel. "Sounds like she needs spanked. I feel like ten-year-old ghosts should be held to the same standard as 10 year old children... they're suppose to obey, right?" Isi pauses with the box she chose snuggled up into her arms under her chin thoughtfully. "I actually can't remember the last ten year old that I had anything to do with."

The man introduces himself as Dash, gives Isi and Ravn a head's up on what's going--basically anything, except a few pieces which are being moved personally by the priest--and then everyone resumes carrying boxes around.

Ravn and Isi both have plenty of time, then, to see the boxes have been carefully labeled with years and contents: records of birth and death, sacraments taken, etc. There aren't that many, truth be told; Gray Harbor has never been big, even when the lumber industry was booming. In fact it's a testament to how small it is that between Dash, the two of them, a pair of highly bored teens who are probably someone's kids press-ganged into helping, and a nun (not in a habit, but a simple, conservative, gray suit), they get through it rather fast. The woman with the truck--a big red duly with a shell, the driver is in fact one of the Munroe sisters, of Munroe Sisters' Hardware--helps load; she's a lumberjack of a woman, with silver threading her dark auburn hair and crow's feet at her dark brown eyes. "Dash was saying you wanted to look through these--just come on by the shop, we'll keep 'em there in the safe storage until the church is cleared." She throws Isi a friendly wink before heading off.

Dash goes with her, and the teens escape as soon as they can, so that leaves Isi and Ravn to be returned to the Priest by the nun, who then goes to see to something else. He's older; easily in his 70s, with white-gray hair that was maybe blond once upon a time; short, chubby, with a bright smile. "So, what can I help you two with?"

Ravn makes a mental note of the truck and the name on it; sorry, Ms Munroe, you're about to get visited by the half of the couple you're not interested in, or at least not that way.

He doesn't really have a lot of experience with Roman Catholic priests. A Lutheran by birth and honestly not all that religious on the whole, the Dane catches himself wondering a moment if he's expected to call the man 'father' or ... Daniel? He knows that the man's name is Daniel. Last name? First name? Good question. He decides to play it safe. Extending a gloved hand he introduces them both, "Ravn Abildgaard and Isi Cameron. We're here to ask a few historical questions if it's not too bad a time. I'm doing some research into a girl who died here in Gray Harbor sometime in the 1950s -- a Muriel Vernon. She was adopted into the Vernon family, though -- her mother was registered at birth as one 'C.A.' only. I'm trying to find out who her true parents were, and what happened to her."

Does Father Daniel have the shine? Ravn isn't sure. Better not start talking about haunted carousels and Baxter ghosts until he does know.

Lift! Walk! Set Down! Repeat! Isi does it with wry good humor. The sudden disappearance of the teens draws a sarcastic smile on her lips. She feels them.

The wink is unexpected and brings a more wicked look onto her lips. "Sure!" gets called out and then Isi falls some steps behind Ravn to watch the woman go.

When she catches up Ravn has got this. While he talks she continues to cast her eyes about, checking out the paintings and art. Her only contribution is probably irrevocably irrelevant. "Does an exorcism feel like a spanking to a ghost?"

Father Daniel's grip is gentle and friendly. No shine evident about him, yet neither does he seem downtrodden or despondent as so many without it in this town can be. He's either cluelessly resilient, or just resilient. ...or just clueless.

He blinks at Isi's question, promptly laughs. "Honestly, I've never done nor attended one, so I can't say. I imagine it's not pleasant, though I'd expect it to be more in the 'fingernails pulled out' sort of category." He waggles a hand, half-shrugs.

The question gets a frown. "Well, none of that rings a bell, except the family name. It's not a Gray Harbor name--the Vernons are from Hoquaim. And I only know that because the priest who mentored my mentor, his sister married a Vernon. Maybe the same family We could look and see what we have based on that, if you want."

Ravn pauses a moment but -- sorry, no obvious jokes about exorcisms and pea soup materialise on his tongue. "Can't say it's something I've witnessed either," he says instead and if his tone is a little surprised sounding it's because the Dane is realising that that is in fact true -- of all the bizarre and homicidal stuff Gray Harbor has put him through, none of it has followed an Abrahamic theme. The infernal hordes have yet to make an appearance on stage -- which is surprising, when you think about it, because the Veil and the dolorphages are pretty good at lifting ideas and archetypes out of people's minds, and Hell does occupy a rather large space on western culture's shelf of horrors.

It's probably on the to-do list.

Unaware that he's a few decades off the mark, Ravn nods. "I think we'd like that. If the Vernons aren't a local family there can't be hundreds of entries to look through, either."

"Huh. Maybe I've heard the wrong things about Christianity." Isi takes a large religious movement with all its pieces and parts and lumps them together. Hello ignorance, thy name is Isi.

She runs a hand through her hair as they mention things about people who might be related to people. "Maybe look for things that aren't far off in spelling too? It happens all the time in the tax documents. Someone forgets an n and suddenly the systems think there is a brand new people."

Father Daniel shrugs at Isi, admits, "Well there's certainly enough sects of Christianity, I can't blame you." And thus Father Daniel proves he's not your average Catholic Priest.

He nods towards the back of the church, turns to head that way. The door to the rectory is at the back; the rectory itself is a simple enough building, nothing fancy. This first room is a long conference room, with a central table and chairs and bookshelves along the walls, all empty save for one. That bookshelf is filled with a number of volumes and binders: records. A small pile of as-yet-unused boxes sits to one side. Father Daniel is about to empty out this bookshelf, no doubt.

"I was just about to take these with me," he confides. "So you came at the right time." He scans the set, pulls down a large registry. "So, let's see..."

It takes him a few minutes and a little digging. Eventually, he says, "Huh. Well..." He turns the binder he's currently looking at towards Ravn. "So, this indicates that Father Wakefield--that's the one I was mentioning--had a niece buried here. Probably your best start." He takes an index card out and scribbles a location. "Here's where she's buried--among the older lots." He frowns at the date. "Might not be the right one, though. It says the good Lord received her in 1933." He hands over the index card regardless. "The name matches, at least: Muriel Vernon."

"1933 is close enough to '1940s' that it's probably the right Muriel -- and more so if she died as a child." Ravn glances at the card, quickly scanning it for any other details that might prove useful or at least informational. "I guess the question is who her true parents were, and the circumstances of her death. Town rumour has it she was the result of a liaison between a Baxter and an Addington. I've some reason to believe this may be true."

What is he, a genealogist? With an accent like that, odds are Ravn is not a distant relation, regardless of how much the Baxters have been trying to get the hell out of Gray Harbor for decades.

Isi rather likes this priest and relaxes when he shows he isn't a total stick in the mud. Unsure of what to add she trails along behind them listening for now. It is only after Ravn talks about true parentage that she pipes up.

"We aren't going to try to get the body up, right?" There is some serious disquiet about her tone at the prospect of digging up a body. "Wouldn't a birth certificate be a better clue?" A glance to the priest. Please save her from graverobbing, even the sanctioned kind.

"If not the same girl, at least a relative." Father Daniel arches an eyebrow at Ravn's supposition. "A Baxter and an Addington?" He laughs, shakes his head. "Those two families have been at each other's throats as long as this town's existed. Not sure how that's possible, unless one didn't know the other." He pauses, looks thoughtful, shrugs.

"You'd need a court order for exhuming her. But, maybe the headstone had some added information. Her birth certificate's on file with the county clerk, that's how they do it in Washington State. As for Father Wakefield..." He pulls out a photo album, flips through it. In the back, among the aging black and white photos, is one of a tall, gaunt man. The ghost Ravn met, the priest chiding Muriel. Here he's every bit the gently severe looking Catholic priest, in a full cassock. "My mentor, Father Hernandez, said he could be a task master, but he wasn't mean spirited. Just had high expectations of everyone."

One of the sisters knocks on the door leading back to the church, peeks her head in. "Father Daniel? We're ready to finish loading up the rest."

"I don't think we need to start digging," Ravn agrees, quite readily because honestly, that thought had not occurred to him and he's not quite comfortable with it either.

Then he falls silent a moment. That face on the photo is familiar, and while he expected something like this to happen, it's still sixty shades of eerie. He picks himself together and adds, "We do not know that the Addington woman involved knew she was getting pregnant by a Baxter. It may have been accidental. If we knew who they were we might be able to tell, but as we don't -- it could be pure bad luck, couple of silly teens fooling around without asking each other's names first for all we know."

"... unless it was... not with consent, then how would you not know you were screwing the enemy of your family?" Isi's got an eyebrow arched wwaaayyyyy up into the air. "Families like this - at least I'm assuming based on popular culture - they get inbred real quick. The family's nose sticks out pretty clearly."

She tilts her head thoughtfully, "Unless they were Romeo and Julieting - at which point I hope they ended better. A love child would have made that play so much better..." Yes, Isi has wandered off the point right now, this is fine.

Father Daniel nods to the sister who's come to fetch him, looks askance at Ravn and Isi. He winces when Isi suggests the more unfortunate possibility in all of this. "He never disclosed the child's origins to anyone--or, not that I'm aware. Certainly Father Hernandez never mentioned it." A small shrug. "I do hope if it was a Romeo and Juliet sort of thing it did, as you say, end a bit less badly." But since the girl was adopted out and died of whooping cough, that seems unlikely.

"You'll find that headstone on the west side there--that's where the older burials were done for members of the clergy." And with that, they're being escorted back out of the rectory.

The storm is looming, giving the town a frenetic energy; the graveyard itself, then, sets the skin to prickling just looking at it. It's a perfectly normal graveyard, at least visually, but it's also a graveyard in Gray Harbor, so how normal can it be?

"I prefer to think that Muriel was conceived in some secret love nest," Ravn murmurs and glances in the direction of the graveyard. He swallows something and adds, under his breath, "So, did I mention this place creeps me the hell out? Something about graveyards."

'Something' being a natural affinity for seeing ghosts. A phenomenon of which there tend to be plenty, in a graveyard -- and a lot of them tend to have all kinds of messages or grievances they definitely want to See Somebody About.

"Let's go look at the grave marker while we're here, though. Be a pity to go to the effort and not even verify that it actually exists." The Dane starts walking, and tries rather hard to ignore the fact that the hairs on the back of his neck are standing up, and everything about this place is telling him to turn around and get on the first train to Poughkeepsie.

Isi snorts, the optimistic turn the pair of them are putting on the situation not really giving Isi much faith that her theory isn't WRONG. She prefers to see the glass as probably half full and man, it probably has a damn hole in the bottom too.

The father leaving has Isi shaking her head until Ravn's words edge out. "WOAH buddy," Isi calls out before they can turn that last corner outside. "Let's step back real quick. You're being haunted by a ghost - right? Or the whole town is. And you think it's smart to go walk into a graveyard?"

Just making sure she understand's clearly right now.

Ravn's concerns aren't unfounded. Even from here, he can see forms moving among the headstones dressed in clothing several decades out of date. One, a young man of maybe eighteen, looks up from where he's writing in an old, leatherbound journal, stares into the distance. "Oh! It's time!" He gets up, runs towards the gates of the cemetery--and disappears.

A teenaged girl and a large collie go running by; her sun dress would be vintage 30s wear for sale on eBay if she were alive. An old, wizzened woman seems to be gardening under a tree.

A middle-aged man, regal in a fine suit that would be high fashion in any era, complete with a fine pocket watch chain and gleaming cane of ebony, is watching the two of them. He's leaning on the gates, watching the two have this will-they-won't-they moment. "She's not wrong, of course," he comments.

"Most ghosts are harmless, and often not even aware of our presence," the Dane murmurs, perhaps to reassure his companion, perhaps as some means of explanation. "What bugs me the most about them, usually, is that often, I can't tell them apart. So I find myself watching someone or even talking to them, until I realise that everybody else is wondering what psychoactives I'm on and where to get some."

He looks at the man in the elegant suit (which he wears a hell of a lot better than Ravn ever wore his ditto, before he stopped bothering to wear ditto). "And of course some of them are quite aware. I don't suppose you could direct us to the gravestone of Muriel Vernon, sir?"

Hey, if Isi can see the guy, all's good. If she can't, well -- she won't be the first person to think he must have missed his medication.

Isi mutters to herself when Ravn doesn't stop. Words like "idiotic sometimes are more audible than others. Louder, "How do you feel a ghost from a," but the man speaking out interrupts her and Isi gestures emphatically at him. "Exactly. Going where there might be ghosts is stupid. Even this guy, " No, Isi hasn't made the connection he might be a ghost, "gets it. Nice suit," the last tacked on as Isi gets a good look at the man top to bottom.

"Why don't we let these nice people get back to their mourning?" The question is asked, but with some resignation, as if Isi didn't think there is a chance of it happening.

She was too busy arguing with Ravn to note the boy vanishing at the gate. This is fine.