Chevy Stevens - Always Watching

Often after work, Kevin and I would go for a drive downtown—searching for Lisa, putting up posters. I knew it was foolish, that we would get more false leads than anything else, but I needed to do it. Sometimes I’d think I could feel her nearby, as though her spirit were still on the streets and in those houses. Kevin and I were still just friends, until one day when he was too tired to drive home. I’d felt myself coming back into my body then, felt the tears beginning to dry.

The cat, along with my daughter, was gone. In the days immediately after the fire, there had been so many people around my home, new voices and scents, she’d bolted. We’d left kibble outside for weeks, but she didn’t come back.

Tammy and I spoke a few times. She’d left her husband and was still struggling with the loss of her sister and parents. It would take a long time for her to heal, but she was strong and making plans for her future. They finally removed Willow’s remains. I imagined the barrel being brought up from the ground, rusted and covered in clods of earth, her bones released from their imprisonment at last. It was hard not to think of her without remembering when Aaron had buried me, the sound of the shovel going into the ground, the dirt hitting the metal, the breath leaving my lungs, knowing that Willow had endured the same fate. But she hadn’t made it out. Sometimes I wondered if that’s when Aaron learned he liked burying women, liked to hear them scream, or if there were others. Willow didn’t have any family, so Robbie and I planned to purchase a plot at the same cemetery as Paul’s. When the police released the remains, we’d hold a service for her.

And we would plant lavender around her grave.

In the middle of May, about a month after the fire, I again started to get the sense that my house was being watched. It was subtle at first. I’d be outside, moving a garbage can, or taking the recycling out, and I’d have the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I’d pause and look around, all my nerve endings alive and ready to run, but never saw anything, so I put it down to stress, or just an overzealous reporter.

One night I came home from work and was getting out of my car when I noticed a movement to my left. I stared hard at the cemetery, catching sight of a shadow quickly walking away. I ran into my house and called Kevin. He came over and had a look around, but didn’t see anything. I reminded myself I’d been tired and jumpy, that it was likely someone taking an evening stroll.

A week later, I was in my potting shed when I realized my pruning shears had been moved. I always kept them hanging on the wall, but they were down by one of my bonsai trees, the one I’d been working on recently. I studied the branches. Fear shot through my body. Someone had cut one of them off.

The police had a look around and even fingerprinted the shears, but the handle had been dirty, and only my print showed up on the blades. It had to have been me that cut the branch, but I had no recollection of doing it. Kevin and I talked about my increased anxiety and considered the possibility that it was paranoia, a delayed post-traumatic stress reaction. I’d almost been killed, along with my brother, and I was struggling with immense guilt over all the lives that had been lost. I was also trying to accept the fact that my daughter had probably not survived the fire. It had been over a month, and there had been no sightings of her, no calls on any of the posters we put up. I still clung to hope, remembering how adept she was at changing her appearance and disappearing from the world, but this time I feared my daughter had disappeared forever. Even if she was just missing and hadn’t died that terrible day, in the end my daughter was gone. And I needed to find some sort of closure.

There was a memorial at the scene of the fire. Now that the initial investigation was over and human remains had been removed, there was a metal chain-link fence and an officer guarding the entrance. People had been coming by for weeks, leaving flowers and trinkets outside the fence, lighting candles. I wanted to bring my own gift, and I also asked Sergeant Pallan if I could visit inside the commune site, something they’d allowed a few family members to do. Sergeant Pallan got permission to bring me there. Kevin also came with me.

I’d never driven by the site before, unable to face it, and I thought I was prepared now, but when we pulled through the gates, and I saw the charred remains of the buildings, I sucked in my breath, like I’d been punched hard in the center of my stomach. I covered my mouth as my eyes filled with tears, shaking my head at the devastating sight, the harsh reality of all those deaths. As we got out of the car, Kevin said, “You sure you want to do this?”

I nodded, looking around. It was warm that day and the first thing I noticed was the smell, the sick odor of fire and smoke, not a pleasant, woodsy smell, but a mixture of everything that had gone up in flames. What had once been beautiful buildings and lush grounds now lay sprawled out, ripped open and gutted. The foundation was visible, some walls and parts of the building still standing, black and misshapen. Trees near the burned buildings also showed their scars, blackened trunks and branches. Crime-scene tape fluttered in the breeze.

We placed our bouquet of flowers with the rest piled outside the gate, a sea of grief that stretched the length of the site. We also took some time to read the poems and sentiments that people had tied to the fence. I cried at the photos of the victims that had been left by loved ones, with mementos, stuffed animals, a child’s toy train, which made me think of the little boy I’d seen in the window.

When we were finished at the memorial, I walked around carefully through the wreckage, making out the shape of the buildings, where some of the rooms might’ve been, crying when I thought of the last time I’d seen my daughter at this place. We didn’t speak much, Kevin and I, or the sergeant, and when we did, only in whispers, still sensing somehow that the dead lingered. The tragedy that had befallen that spot hung in the air, the energy of pain and death and fear remained with the buildings, and I felt it to my core. My stomach and body were weak and shaky and sick with it. I tried not to let my imagination take over, but I couldn’t stop the flashes of brutal images running through my mind, people screaming in pain, the terror they must have felt in their last moments. I reached out a hand and touched one of the walls, feeling the wood turned to charcoal, rubbing it in my hands and letting the fragments drift to the ground, staring at the ash below my feet. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.

Then, finally, the one image my mind had never been able to face until this moment, my daughter’s possible death. The smoke trapping in her lungs, the screams of agony. I doubled over, clutching my stomach, sobbing. Then Kevin was beside me, his arms wrapping around me, holding me up as I broke down.

When my tears had subsided, and I could stand, the sergeant took us down a metal ladder that had been left, leading to the underground chamber. Though it was warm that day, we all felt the chill, the empty chamber with the door hanging open, the toilet dug into the ground, the metal cot with its thin blanket, which had somehow survived the fire. I went inside, rubbing my arms in the dark, thinking of all the members who’d begged to go in there, fasting until they were hallucinating, desperate for their glimpse of the other side. I hoped that Aaron’s beliefs had at least brought them some comfort as they faced their deaths.

When we left the commune that day, I was exhausted, resting my head on Kevin’s shoulder as we drove home, my hand holding his. I’d hoped for closure, but I’d just found more questions. Why wasn’t my daughter seen those last days? Had Aaron or Joseph done something to her before they came to Shawnigan? My head filled with terrifying thoughts. What if she’d been put somewhere else, but no one came back for her? I tried to remind myself that Aaron had been happy with Lisa. He’d had no reason to punish her, no need for revenge.