Safe Passage
Lia Weatherell sat on the edge of the north pier, feet dangling above the waves, and listened to her cell phone ring. It played a song, a catchy jangling tune that she'd loved just a few weeks ago and now could barely stand.
It was her aunt, she knew. Her aunt with no news and no comfort, no reason to hope, nothing but more worry and a quiet plea for Lia to come home before it got too dark. Home, Lia always wanted to ask. Home? Her home was in Toronto, a city where she'd ridden the streetcars at midnight in January; a city where she'd bought prescription medicine for her crazy mother at two A.M. as the patrons of the local bars flooded out; a city where the rush of traffic and the clatter of the nearby subway was as familiar as the sound of her own breath. She was not afraid of twilight in a little town like this.
And this was not her home.
"Safe Passage" was one of the hardest stories I've yet had to write, as well as one of the most rewarding. The theme for the anthology Mythspring was one I felt strongly about -- stories based on the myths, legends and lyrics of Canada. When researching possible myths and legends upon which to base my own tale, I found plenty of information about French Canadian legends, and Native and Inuit legends -- but very little about the areas of Canada that I knew. I was born in Toronto, raised in the small but growing town of Bolton just north of the city limits, and spent many childhood summers in the "cottage country" regions surrounding Lake Huron. After some frustration and anxiety, I suddenly knew that that's what I somehow had to capture: the parts of Southern Ontario that I knew so well, in all their varied details.
So I took the quirky town of Kincardine, which I frequent in the summer when in need of groceries, and found it was a veritable trove of interesting tales and history. I added a few ghosts, a few more bagpipes, and the story of Lia and her crazy, missing mother -- a mother she fears may be dead -- spun out from there.
But if only someone had warned me: telling a story that is so intimately connected with a real setting is hard. I couldn't move landmarks to fit my plot, and there were so many pesky details that each had to be just so. I never could have completed this story -- or had a story worth reading -- without the help and support of my friends Sid and Jaki, who not only allowed me to stay at their house while researching, but who took me on tours, endured my somewhat odd questions and introduced me to people in the community who provided some of the details that helped me bring the history of the town to life.
And for those who were wondering: yes, there really is a parade every week in Kincardine during the summer, and yes, I've described it as accurately as I possibly could (though, I admit, I added the ghosts). And it's every bit as silly and crazy and fun as it sounds.
Published in Mythspring, edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Genevieve Kierans, Red Deer Press, March 2006.
