Flickers Read online

  DEDICATION

  For Tanaya

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  1913

  Near Lethbridge, Alberta

  The first baby was born after midnight on the kitchen table of a two-room ranch house. It was December 16. A massive snowstorm shrouded the countryside. The old rancher, Ernest Thorn, had to perform the delivery as there was no way to plough through twenty miles of swirling snow and drifts to Lethbridge. He wasn’t even certain he could open his front door, the snowbanks had piled so high. Hot water boiled on the pot-bellied stove and warm blankets waited on the cupboard next to the table. He washed his hands with whisky.

  “It’s time,” his wife said through clenched teeth.

  The rancher wasn’t surprised by Abigail’s bravery and strength; she had been strong enough to live in a sod house next to the Oldman River for eight years before he built this two-bedroom log house. She had done every chore this ranching life demanded of her without complaint. “Just push,” he said, patting her hand. “Nature will do the rest.”

  As the snow drifted deeper around the house and the wind rattled the glass in the windows, Ernest guided his daughter into the world. It was a surprisingly quick and easy birth. She was smaller than he’d expected. He held the gently crying infant in his crooked, callused hands and looked into her eyes, the same blue as his wife’s.

  He was a hard man. He’d fought in the Boer War, had fought drought and pestilence and time, and it was rare that he was ever moved by beauty, but in the infant’s soft, small features he saw angelic perfection.

  “Is she . . . healthy?” his wife asked, her voice drowsy with exhaustion.

  “Yes. Yes.” He wrapped the girl in linen. “She’s gloriously well formed.”

  He laid the squirming bundle in his wife’s outstretched arms. “She’s exquisite,” Abigail rasped, after catching her breath. “She’s a gift from God.”

  “What will we call her?” Ernest asked.

  “Isabelle,” his wife answered without hesitation. It had been her mother’s name and it suited the baby. She was destined to be a belle of the prairies.

  Ernest wondered how he had deserved to have such grace in his life. Not once, but twice. The first time was ten years ago when his wife had chosen him, in spite of his being much older than her and even though so many other men had asked for her hand in marriage. And now, here was an angel wriggling before them. After such a long wait there would be three Thorns to till the soil. And maybe even a boy next. He patted his wife’s hand again and smiled.

  She opened her mouth to speak but instead screamed a hard and terrible scream.

  Ernest quickly laid Isabelle in the waiting bassinet. His daughter mewled and reached for him, her cries hitting a higher and higher pitch, but he left her there.

  “What’s happening?” he asked Abigail. “What’s wrong?”

  “Another ch-child,” she said. “There’s another child. A twin.” Then Abigail screamed again, the tendons on her neck standing out. She gritted her teeth, grabbed the edges of the table and breathed madly, like a horse with a broken leg. “Dear God,” she said.

  The crown of the infant was showing. Ernest had pulled hundreds of calves into this world and he knew the baby would suffocate if he delayed a moment longer. So he helped in his own rough way, sweat forming on his forehead. Then, with one more short scream from his wife, the infant was free and squirming in his hands.

  The rancher held it up: another daughter, heavier than the first and more solid. Her skin was a patchwork of purple and white, the umbilical cord tight around her neck. He loosened the cord and she began sucking in wet breaths. She made no other noise, just looked up at him with eyes as brown as his own.

  The girl was so unlike her sister that it shocked him. He had seen calves born hairless, their skin a human pink, their goggling eyes odd and far too large. She was as wretched as those calves, her skull misshapen, perhaps by the force he’d applied when he’d pulled her. Her naked body was covered with brown spots—dozens of birthmarks on her arms, legs, chest, and face.

  “It’s—it’s another daughter.” Then, a moment later, he added, “Abigail?”

  His wife was still. Her chest did not rise. He knew in his gut she was dead. Her heart had given out bringing their second daughter into the world.

  The twin didn’t look as though she belonged here. It was as if he’d wrenched her from some other place.

  2

  The news of the twins’ birth and Abigail Thorn’s death travelled quickly up the Oldman River to Lethbridge and farther along the rail line to Calgary and down to Sweetgrass, Montana. People in the southwest section of the province knew the old rancher; he’d been one of the first in those parts to leave the coal mines and successfully carve a farm into the hilly land.

  The doctor came and pronounced the children healthy, but warned that the birthmarks on the younger girl’s skin would never go away. Isabelle had cried for a long time after the doctor left. Ernest offered her more milk and changed her dry diaper, but to no avail. He decided she was a social child. She’d gotten that from her mother.

  A reporter from the Lethbridge Herald arrived, but Ernest only allowed him to photograph Isabelle. No sense having strangers gawk at the ugly daughter. Her photograph was carried by several papers and the sight of her, and the story of her birth, touched thousands of hearts. Within a week, Ernest had received several packages of infant clothing and more baby food and formula than twenty children would consume in a lifetime. This was followed by bundles of blankets sent by church groups, letters from men saying they were available to work his fields for free, women offering to clean and cook, and even a proposal of marriage from an ancient widow in Calgary. At least thirty people wired money. And one old sailor from the East Coast sent a box of dried fish. Ernest took one whiff of it and fed the fish to the barn cats. He silently thanked the fisherman and all the other kind strangers.

  Neighbours offered to care for his children, but he refused—the girls were all he had left of Abigail. So he learned to feed them Mellin’s Infant Food and milk from his Jersey cow. He boiled their dirty diapers and folded them in neat piles.

  Two weeks after their births, Ernest realized he had yet to name the younger sister. He was avoiding it—almost as if he didn’t want to claim her as his own. It was time, though.

  He brought Isabelle out of the bedroom and set her in the bassinet near the fire. She began to cry the moment he walked away. Then he retrieved her sister. Once they were side by side Isabelle calmed down. The younger girl had one arm on Isabelle, but watc
hed him with such serious eyes. Or so it appeared; he wasn’t certain how much children could see this early in life.

  “Beatrice,” he said. The name seemed to have come out of nowhere. It took him a moment to remember that Beatrice was a character in one of the fancy poetry books Abigail had been reading. She’d babble constantly about poetry and book stories over dinner.

  Beatrice. Abigail would approve.

  In February, the snow deepened and the storms became so terrible that he tied a long rope from the barn to his house. Hand over hand he went, the whiteness so blinding that if he took one step off the path, he could easily stumble into a field and freeze to death before he found his way back. To his surprise, both the children thrived during the hard winter. Isabelle began to make more and more gurgles, and he was certain that her speech would come easily and early. He played peekaboo and upsy-daisy with her. But if he went away or picked up Beatrice, she shrieked.

  So he would wait until Isabelle slept to take Beatrice into his arms. When he lifted her into a sitting position, she’d hold her head straight. She was strong and was already rolling over. Maybe she’d be like a son.

  He tried to find beauty in Beatrice’s face, but it was too lopsided and the skin hadn’t decided which colour it wanted to be. Some parts were dark pink, others marred by the birthmarks. It made her look a bit like a calico cat. The marks seemed to form a pattern, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Though Isabelle already had her first strands of blond hair, it seemed Beatrice’s hair might never grow. It didn’t matter. There were hats. And he would protect her from any who were gruff enough or stupid enough to remark about her appearance within his earshot.

  He began to believe there would be something good for his children in the future. He’d fight this hard world for it and carve a place for them, and they would have happy lives.

  3

  1914

  Near Lethbridge, Alberta

  With the spring thaw, icicles began to drip and the snow melted to reveal brown earth and dead grass. Ernest was in the front yard chopping wood for the stove, both girls asleep in the house, when he heard a rumbling. He turned, axe in hand, to see a black automobile snaking along the road. It was the largest car Ernest had ever seen. The driver sat in an open-air compartment, goggles guarding his eyes and around his neck was a red muffler that flapped like a flag. His purple coat and leather hat made him look like a pilot. In the seat next to him sat a blond woman in a green coat. The windows of the carriage section were dark.

  The car stopped at the edge of the driveway, one front wheel on the grass. The driver stepped out, lifted his goggles, and smiled, showing perfectly white teeth. He opened the door on the passenger side and made a show of taking the woman’s hand and helping her step down. It was as if they were acting in a play; they turned in unison and walked arm in arm toward Ernest, the woman’s open coat flapping in the wind. In his opinion, too many buttons were undone at the top of her dress. She stumbled on a rut, straightened herself, and let out a girlish giggle.

  “Uncle Ernest,” the driver said.

  Ernest squinted, then recognized his nephew. He hadn’t seen his sister’s son in several years. The boy was now in his late twenties, his dark hair was combed straight back with oil, except for one curiously silver lock that curled across his brow. The woman was attractive and maybe twenty, cheeks red with the wind, eyes a little red, too, and her smile strained. She giggled again.

  “Wayne,” Ernest said. He put no warmth in his reply. He had labelled his nephew a drifter when the boy was a teen and Wayne had proved him right by drifting away from his family farm, his responsibilities. He hadn’t even come home for his mother’s funeral. “You’ve aged.”

  “Grown up, you mean. I’ve been working in California. In the flicker show industry down there. Have you ever seen one?”

  “I don’t have time for flights of fancy.”

  Wayne laughed. “I suppose you don’t. Cows to feed and fields to till. My work is much different now. I’ve been in some brilliant films. I was in Trail to the West and The Deserter and had bit parts in several others. Betty is in movies, too.” She curtsied a little too deeply and Wayne caught her before she toppled over. “She’s going to be a big star.”

  That got her laughing again, a sound that set Ernest’s teeth on edge. She’s drunk, he thought. The red eyes. The giggles. The woman is drunk!

  “Why are you here?” Ernest asked. He hadn’t lowered the axe yet.

  “You always were quick to the point, Uncle. That’s what I like about you.” Wayne put his hat back on at the perfect angle. “Well, I saw the picture.”

  “Picture?”

  “Yes, of your daughter. Of Isabelle Thorn. Aunt Jessop clipped it from the Lethbridge paper and mailed it my way. It’s made quite the buzz down south. You didn’t know that?”

  “How would I?”

  “Good question. Good question.” He scratched his head as if pondering that very thing. “Well, when I saw the little baby I just knew I had to visit my brand-spanking-new cousin. Can we go inside?”

  “We’d love to see the sweet little one,” Betty said. “She must be cute in a dress. I brought one. A gift for her. It’s very frilly.”

  “The girls are sleeping,” Ernest said.

  “Girls?” Wayne continued to scratch his head. “Oh, that’s right, they’re twins. Even better. That’s a handful for an old rancher, isn’t it? I mean, I know you can handle several cows. But kids, well, they’re different animals altogether. All that crying and wailing and diapers and stuff.”

  “I get by.”

  “I suppose you do. But you know, Uncle Ernest, you can do much better than just getting by.” He raised his eyebrows in a playful manner. “You’ll be happy to hear that I’ve come with a wonderful proposition.” He pointed at the car behind him. “You see, my boss—Mr. Big Picture Guy, as I like to call him—he knows faces. He launched them all. Mary Pickford—he picked her out of a crowd of actresses. Douglas Fairbanks, too. Charlie Chaplin is a good friend of his. Like I say, Mr. Big Picture Guy has a sharp eye.”

  “Your boss not able to speak for himself?” Ernest asked.

  Wayne laughed again. “He’s the type who doesn’t have to speak for himself.”

  “I don’t let others wag their tongues for me. Does he have a name?”

  “It’s Mr. Cecil. He’s a producer and a director—he’s very well-known in important circles—the film industry, senators, oilmen. Anyway, he thought we could help you out.”

  “Help me? In what way?”

  Wayne flashed another smile. “We’ll raise them for you. Both of the girls. We have a lovely place, it’s a mansion—one of the largest in the country, there’re even tennis courts and a pool and a zoo and it’s all right on the ocean. A California mansion. La Casa Grande. It has its own name, that’s how big it is. Mr. Cecil is letting Betty and me live there. We’re going to be his biggest stars. And that mansion is where your girls could grow up. A giant piece of heaven.”

  “You and this woman would raise them? Is she your wife?”

  “Well, we got married on a film once. That counts, right? Truth is, we’re fixin’ to hitch real soon. She’d be a great mommy. Wouldn’t you, Betty?”

  “Of course. I like kids. Love ’em! I really do. They’re so . . . so . . .”—she put her hands together as if she were holding one—“. . . so little. They’re like dolls. I love dolls.”

  Wayne added, “And there’s no winter down there. None at all.”

  Ernest let out a snort. “You want them to live in a place with no winter?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. I know you have doubts, Uncle, but we’ve come all this way to make this extremely generous offer. You see, Isabelle has a wonderful face. Mr. Cecil sees great potential in it.”

  “What would he do with her face?”

  “She would be in films! When she’s older of course, though there are a few parts for babies and toddlers. Cute parts. It’s a very lucrative business. After j
ust a few years she could own a hundred farms like this.”

  “Why would I send my daughters so far away from where they were born?”

  “Where we are born is not always the best place for us to end up.” Wayne said each word slowly. “Dear Aunt Abigail would agree if she were still alive. All their education, all their needs would be looked after for the rest of their lives. They’d get everything they ever dreamed of. And Isabelle’s name would be in lights.”

  Ernest glared at him.

  Wayne glanced back at the vehicle. “Now, we’re very reasonable, Uncle. We would pay you.”

  “Miss Betty,” Ernest said, his voice gravelly, “would you trot on back to the car? I have words for my nephew’s ears only.”

  Betty curtsied again. “His ears are all yours.” She turned and wobbled away.

  “You’d like to pay me for my children?” Ernest echoed.

  “Money is no object. It could be a salary, if that’s more to your liking. You could fix things up here—everything, that is. Buy another cow or two or ten.”

  With each word Ernest’s hand was tightening on the axe handle. “My children can’t be bought.” It came out as a low growl. “Slither right back to your den of snakes.”

  “Now, now, Uncle Ernest. You’re jumping to the wrong conclusion.”

  “No. Your mother is dead. Your father is dead. You’re not my nephew. I’ll have no further contact with you. Leave my farm.”

  Ernest Thorn stepped toward his nephew and Wayne backed up, raising his hands.

  “Perhaps I worded things wrongly.”

  “No, you worded them the only way you know how. A lie. A twist. Another lie: whatever is best for you. Get out of here now if you want to leave in one piece.” Wayne continued to back up. He glanced at the blacked-out windows of the car, then fled around the front, opened the driver’s door, and threw himself into his seat.

  Ernest stood ten feet away from the automobile, holding his axe. He wanted to attack the metal monster, to kill the thing that had brought them all here. He took a few steps toward the carriage compartment, staring into the blackened windows. “If you can hear me in there, Mr. Cecil, don’t come back! This isn’t California. This is my home. You’re not welcome.”