The Pine Hollow Chronicles. Ch.4

Chapter 4

“Hi!  You must be Emily!”  Em slumped down in her seat.  It didn’t help that the English teacher had chosen the moment after class had started to address her.  Everyone was staring at her again. 

     “Oh..EM..ily,” Em heard Connor say, realizing her full name for the first time. The class twittered, and Ms. Markham shot him a “teacher look” before turning her attention back to Em.  “Do you want to come up and introduce yourself?” she asked her.  Em felt herself blushing, and shook her head no, annoyed once again with how the day was going. 
      “Ok, you don’t have to,” Ms. Markham said to her.  The teacher talked to her like she was talking to a real person and not a student.  Em looked up and was surprised to see Ms. Markham watching her thoughtfully.  “We’re glad you’re here Emily.”  She said.  It sounded genuine, and try as she might, Em couldn’t detect that forced cheerfulness most teachers she’d known had possessed.

                Sam raised his hand, “What are we doing today?” he asked.  “Is it still diagraming?”

Ms. Markham smiled.  “Maybe.”  The class groaned.  Savannah blurted out, “Ms. Markham! Nobody does that in real life.  Can you tell us a story instead?”

                “YEAH,” came murmurs of agreement from the class, causing Ms. Markham to raise her hand and call for quiet.  She sighed and put her hand on her forehead like she had a headache, but she was smiling.  “First of all,” she began.  “Savannah, please raise your hand next time.  And you’re right.  Not everyone diagrams, but because I think that you’re so important, I am forcing it upon you.  It helps you write correctly, and no one can do that these days either.”

                “Not the lecture!” cried Connor.  Ms. Markham stopped and stared at him. 

“Sorry,” he whispered. 

She went on, “I will lecture you as often as I want to.”  The class laughed.  “As for stories, who do you think I am?  Ms. Buzzell?”  At this comment, the class fell into a strange silence.  Em looked around and noticed a few kids glancing at each other in surprise.  Anna and Sam exchanged one of the glances, causing Em to wonder what was going on.  Savannah, who was oblivious to the silence, broke in (with her hand raised this time) “but you have such good stories.  PLEASE!  Tell us about your kids.”

                Ms. Markham smiled. “Alright, but only if you promise to diagram without complaining.  After all, it is English class, and stories are a part of what we do.  Especially if there are fun words in them.”

“We promise,” blurted Savannah, as if she spoke for the entire class.

“Well,” said Ms. Markham.   “First things first.  Pull out your agendas and copy down today’s verse.”  She motioned to the white board.  There, in the corner, spelled out in cardboard letters, was the phrase “Bit O’ Truth.”  The teacher looked at Em, “My favorite candy when I was a kid were those “Bit O’ Honey candies,” she explained.  “I think truth is kind of like candy for the soul.  Every day I’ll make you copy a new verse, just to think about, and remember.  You’ll never know when you need a bit of truth in your day!”  She smiled.

Em read the quote underneath the letters, neatly written in cursive.  “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?  Why are you so far away when I groan for help?”

She picked up her pencil and began writing clumsily in cursive.  They hadn’t spent that much time on cursive at her last school.  What an odd quote.  She was used to teachers writing inspirational things, with deep meanings like:  “Seize the day!” or “Tomorrow is only a day away,” (but maybe that last one was a song?).   Em read it again, and the words seemed hit her with an almost physical intensity.  It felt real.  This poor person was alone and abandoned- by God of all people!  She could relate.

After giving the class about five minutes to finish their “Bit O’ Truth,” Ms. Markham paused for discussion.  “What do you think about this quote?” she asked, and waited.  The class was silent.  Much to Em’s dismay, Ms. Markham looked straight at her.  “Any thoughts, Emily?”  Emily wondered how much the teachers here knew about her life.  She felt angry and embarrassed that this particular “Bit O’ Truth” might be for her, although that was just a guess.  It was time to get these people off her back.

“It probably doesn’t matter,” she said, faking indifference, “There isn’t a God anyway.”  Although it seemed impossible, the class actually got quieter at this statement.  It was almost like they actually stopped breathing.

Ms. Markham smiled at this response.  “Then who is there to be angry at?” she asked.  Em didn’t know what this meant, so she sat silently.  “Well,” said the teacher after a moment.  “All the more reason to discuss this point!”

 Anna slipped up her hand, helping to take the edge off the class’ obvious discomfort.  “I didn’t think God would ever leave someone.”

“No,” agreed Ms. Markham.  “Do you think there are times in our lives, though, when it feels like he does?”  The class remained silent, and Em stared at a tiny black spot in the grain of the desk she was seated at.  She didn’t want to look up, because, for some reason, she was afraid she would cry.  When no one answered, Ms. Markham said, “It might be a good idea for us to figure this out, including what we should do when we feel abandoned or alone.” 

Em thought about the teacher’s question.  “Who is there to be angry at?” she asked herself, turning the words over in her mind.  “What a dumb question.  People.  I am angry at people.”  Her anger grew as she thought about her dad leaving, her mom forcing her here, and now this dumb teacher.  Where was a paper clip when she needed it?

The class remained silent, and Ms. Markham simply went on, “We will save that for our next discussion!  Now, for my story and then the diagrams!”  She said the word “diagrams” with such gusto that the class groaned. 

“Hey!  You promised,” Ms. Markham called out as she walked over to her desk.  The class was almost instantaneously quiet at this reprimand.   The teacher began rummaging around in her purse, which she kept under her desk.

“I want to show you something!  Hold on, I have to find it.”  Ms. Markham kept searching.  “Oh!  Here!” she said brightly.  From her purse she pulled out a slender box, long, and covered with red velvet.

“I don’t have a story about my kids,” she apologized as she made her way to the front of the room, ‘but I thought this was kind of cool.  We were cleaning out my parent’s house in South Minneapolis.  My mother had forgotten about this box, and we found it when we were going through some old trunks in the attic.  Their house was built in 1912, so the attic has a lot of strange dark spaces to hide old boxes.”

The velvet on the box was worn down to black in several spots.  Ms. Markham clicked it open and pulled out a necklace, held aloft for the class to see.  “Oooh,” said the middle schoolers.  Em sighed, still staring at her desk.

“My mother told me this necklace is even older than their house,” continued Ms. Markham.  “It was her great-grandmother’s.  I guess she brought it over from Ireland.  At least, I think it was Ireland.  Maybe it was Scotland.  I get those two places mixed up. That’s why I don’t teach Geography.”

“Waa Waa,” broke in Connor, highlighting the teacher’s bad joke.

“Thanks for that,” Ms. Markham said.

“Any time,” replied Connor.

Ms. Markham sighed, “Anyway, I think it is supposed to be a snowflake.  But, see…” she held it up higher and looked at it, “at all the places the metal intersects to make the shape, there are tiny knots.  They are so small, you have to look pretty close.”

Emily glanced up then, and was surprised.  The necklace chain was ugly. It clearly didn’t match the charm.  But the silver snowflake was delicate, and, for lack of a better word, different.  As it dangled from the chain and turned in the light it was sometimes silver, and sometimes…maybe… clear?  No, that would be impossible, Em thought quickly.

Ms. Markham was still speaking, “I thought the necklace was beautiful, but I liked the family legend that goes along with it a lot better.” She paused to hear if the class would prompt her to tell it.  They remained quiet, so she continued.  “Okay,” she leaned in closer for dramatic effect. “Legend has it that my great-grandmother loved to go for walks in the ancient woods by her home.  Apparently, she was very beautiful, like me.”

 (“Good one,” someone whispered.  Em thought it was probably Connor).

 If Ms. Markham heard it, she ignored it.  “Unbeknownst to her (by the way, I love that word-unbeknownst) she was being watched by a stranger.  Each day the stranger watched my great-grandmother walking in the woods, and was enchanted by her beauty.  One day, the stranger could not help but speak with her.  It was near twilight, and mist was filling the hallows between the trees.”  (Ms. Markham was clearly enjoying her embellishments).  “He stepped out of the woods, onto the little path and said, ‘Hullo!  My name is Rowan Kinsford.’  He said it just like that-quick and awkward!

 ‘Hello, Rowan Kinsford,” replied my great- grandmother.  She was a bit perplexed (another great word) since she didn’t recognize the last name Kinsford.   The valley she lived in was small, and families knew one another.  But, she didn’t feel scared.  In fact, she felt safe, and calm.  My mother said that my great-grandmother felt as if she was talking to someone she knew as well as she knew the forest.”

 Em rolled her eyes.  Ms. Markhams’s mother must be as over dramatic as she was.  The rest of the class, however, was hanging on every word. 

“Needless to say,” the teacher went on, “my great-grandmother met with Rowan Kinsford in the woods every evening, and they fell in love.”

The class giggled at the word “love.”  Ms. Johnson Markham for them to settle down before she continued.

 “One evening, my great-grandmother came to meet Jack, and he was nowhere to be found.   She waited and waited.  He never came.  She was very concerned.  Night after night she went into the woods and he never came.  My great-grandmother was heart-broken.  The woods, that had been such a place of enchantment for her, were now a reminder of her sadness.  She decided she could no longer remain in the valley and made plans to leave for America.” 

“On the night before she was to leave, she decided to take one last walk in the twilight, and suddenly he was there!  Rowan Kinsford, after all this time!  His eyes were deep, and sad.  He apologized time after time to my great-grandmother, who remained aloof.  “Please, believe my love is true,” he begged her.  “I knew that I should not speak with you, as rules set in place before my existence forbid me.  But I simply could not stop my heart from being connected with yours.” 

“Ew,” one student whispered.

The story continued.  “My great-grandmother had no idea what he meant, of course.  I suppose she knew that their love could not continue.  However, before she left, he handed her this knotted snowflake.  “May you always look at this and remember me,” he whispered before he left.  ‘May the love in your life be as pure as the snow.  May each knot represent the connections to the loves that will bring you joy therein, and may those loves make you stronger.  A cord of three strands is not easily broken.’  With that statement, he handed her the necklace and left.  No one was ever to see Rowan Kinsford again.  My great-grandmother left for America in the morning.”

The class seemed to let out a collective sigh as the story ended.  Even Emily had to admit it was kind of interesting.  Over dramatic and silly, but it kept her attention for a few minutes.  Sam raised his hand, “Is that really a true story, Ms. Markham? “he asked doubtfully.

Ms. Markham just smiled, “Legends aren’t usually all true, Sam.  Especially if they are old family legends.  Parts can be true here or there, but most get changed over time.”  She paused, then pointed up at the “Bit O’ Truth” board.  “That’s why it is good to stick closely to these words we know are true, and take everything else with a grain of salt.”

Savannah sighed, “How beautiful.  Who really was Rowan Kinsford after all?

Ms. Markham smiled, “Oh, no one really knows.  He probably didn’t even exist.  Anyway-“ she put the necklace back in the velvet box, “onward to diagrams!”

Em didn’t pay attention to whether the class kept their promise about complaining.  She couldn’t get the necklace out of her head.  It just sat there, in the box next to Ms. Johnson as she began to teach.  There was something about it that made her heart jump when she looked at it.  She wanted to see it again.  It was a nice thought: to have love follow you your whole life, bringing you joy.  Em missed love.  It didn’t feel like things such as that existed any more.  The necklace reminded her, just a little, that once in her life, it had.