The Cauleter
Jezebel Bonner was a maiden of only sixteen years when the man she loved and planned to marry went off to sea, never to return. For nearly two long, lonely years, the grieving young woman paced the length of the widow's walk atop her father's home, searching the horizon for a sign of her beloved's ship. Her father, Dante Bonner, a wealthy merchant, was himself a widower and no stranger to heartbreak. With no wife and no son, he doted on Jezebel, his only child.
"My dear girl," he said gently on the eve of his daughter's eighteenth birthday, "it is time you faced facts, painful though they may be."
Jezebel shook her head, ready to bolt from the room should her father suggest she forget her lost love and consider marrying one of the other eligible young men in New Bedford who had asked for her hand.
"I think it is high time you cast off your mourning gowns and returned to the world."
Jezebel was not anxious to engage in a social life, but she did want to please her father.
"I suppose I can begin calling on my friends again," she conceded. "Tea parties, church socials—that sort of thing."
"I was thinking of something more along the lines of a trip—just the two of us."
The fiercely devoted daughter reached over and affectionately squeezed her parent's hand.
"I'd like that very much, Father."
"Good. I'll arrange passage as soon as possible."
"Passage?"
"Yes. We'll sail to England, and from there we'll go to France, Italy and Spain."
Jezebel paled. A week at Cape Cod would have been nice, but she was not up to taking the grand tour of Europe.
"I don't know, Father, I ...."
"We'll have a wonderful time! We can go to art museums, the opera, the theater, the finest restaurants and the most expensive shops. You'll be the envy of every woman in New Bedford when you return with a wardrobe from the finest couturiers in Paris."
Jezebel was not interested in art, clothes, food or the theater. She had no desire to see London, Paris or Rome. Yet remaining in New Bedford would not bring her any joy either.
"If you really want to take this trip, go ahead and book passage."
Unfortunately, just days before the father and daughter were due to sail, Dante Bonner collapsed on the way to his office. For weeks, the stricken man hovered on the brink of death. During that time his daughter never left his side. When the doctor finally pronounced her father out of immediate danger, Jezebel gave in to her exhaustion and slept for two days without waking.
The next three years passed in a blur of doctor's visits, medications, prayers and brief periods of improvement, followed by relapses and tears. During her father's illness, Jezebel cared for him as no nurse would have done. Her unselfish devotion to the sick man no doubt helped him live as long as he did, but not even the most dedicated loved one can stave off the Grim Reaper forever. One afternoon in early October, as the trees basked in their autumnal glory, Dante Bonner closed his eyes for a nap and never opened them again.
* * *
With her father gone, Jezebel couldn't bear remaining in New Bedford. The large house on Pleasant Street, her childhood home, had become northing more than a repository of bittersweet memories. Hoping a change of scenery would dull the pain of loss, the young heiress headed south to Virginia. She found a charming brick house in Williamsburg, a well-preserved building that dated back to colonial times. Although the house was far too large for a single woman, Jezebel didn't mind, for she enjoyed the peace and quiet of the empty rooms.
Not long after moving to Williamsburg, however, Jezebel began to feel a strange presence in the house. Born and raised in a town that dated back to the mid-1600s, she had seen a fair number of colonial houses and public buildings that were said to be haunted. Not only did she firmly believe in ghosts, but she felt no fear of encountering one. On the contrary, a sense of curiosity filled her, and she attempted to make contact with the spirit. When all her attempts failed, she approached her housekeeper.
"I know this must sound ridiculous," she began, "but has anyone ever seen or felt anything strange in this house?"
The housekeeper's eyes widened and then moments later narrowed.
"Aye," the woman replied. "That they have."
"This place is haunted, isn't it?"
"That's what most folks around here believe."
"Do you know by whom?"
"No one does. There was never any tragedy here—no murder, accidental death or suicide. Nothing at all out of the ordinary."
"That's odd! I wonder what the spirit is doing here then."
"I don't know, but there is someone you might ask," the housekeeper suggested rather timidly.
"Who is that?"
"Hermione Blaisdell. Folks around here claim she's got the sight."
"You mean she's a witch?"
"Not exactly. She just seems to know things that others don't, to see things that others can't."
* * *
The following week Hermione Blaisdell paid a visit to the young heiress.
"Thank you for coming," Jezebel said, as she led her guest to the drawing room where tea and sandwiches had been laid out.
"Thank you for inviting me," Hermione replied, eyeing the fine furniture and expensive silverware.
Over their meal, the two women discussed mundane topics such as food, the weather and the current fashions. Finally, after the housekeeper cleared away the dishes, the subject of the ghost was brought up.
"I don't believe this house is haunted," Hermione stated with strong conviction. "Not in the true sense of the word, anyway."
"What do you mean?" Jezebel asked, more than a little disappointed. "In what other sense is there?"
"The dead haunt houses. What is roaming the halls of this house is not a ghost."
Jezebel's heart raced.
"What is it then?"
"It has many names. People from Norway refer to these beings as huldrefolk, meaning 'hidden people.' I prefer to call them cauleters, or 'ones who walk among us.' Cauleters are said to be descended from the children of Adam and Lilith."
"Who is Lilith?"
"Adam's first wife, before God created Eve. According to legend, when God asked to see her children, Lilith did not show them all, and God angrily decreed that those not revealed would forever be concealed. What developed at that time was a race of invisible people who live undetected among us to this day."
"If we can't see them, how do we know they exist?"
Hermione shrugged her shoulders.
"We cannot see air, but it is all around us. For all we know, the world is teeming with things we cannot distinguish with our senses."
"Does this thing pose any threat to us?"
"To my knowledge, it hasn't hurt anyone yet. It's doubtful you'll be in any danger now."
Danger or not, Jezebel did experience a rush of fear when the cauleter finally made himself known to her. It had been an unusually cool evening for late spring. She had just poured herself a hot cup of tea and sat down with a book when the oil lamp flickered and went out.
"Drat!" she groaned.
As she relit the wick, she saw a movement in the shadows.
"Who is there?"
"It is I, my dear."
It communicated not with spoken words but with thoughts. In appearance, the cauleter resembled a human, but its form was diaphanous like that of a ghost.
Jezebel's knees became weak, and she grabbed the arms of the wing chair for support.
"You're a man!" Jezebel cried in astonishment.
"No, I'm not," the reply came to her mind. "I appear to you as a man because I am projecting this visage on your conscious mind."
The mistress of the house sat in her chair, trembling, frightened by the encounter with something so alien. Yet she bravely fought her fears, determined to learn more about the unusual being.
Over the next few days, she learned that the cauleter was immortal, a creature who had existed on the North American continent long before the Native Americans arrived. His was a race that had never known illness or death, hunger or pain. Yet neither did he know the feeling of the warm sun on his face or of a cool breeze blowing through his hair. He was capable of feeling love, but he had never known the physical fulfillment of that emotion.
Jezebel empathized with the creature.
"We are the same in many respects," she told him. "I feel love for my fiancé but am unable, because of his disappearance, to consummate that love. Like you, I am on the outside looking in, seeing love all around me but unable to know it myself."
But hers was not the same forlorn state as the cauleter's, for her solitude was in part her own doing. She was surrounded by a world filled with humans, and all she had to do was reach out to them.
* * *
Weeks passed and turned to months. Jezebel grew close to her invisible housemate, although, for her sake, the cauleter projected the semi-opaque form as often as possible. The human and the cauleter spent many an evening in stimulating mental communication and sometimes even in comfortable silence.
At first, Jezebel didn't recognize the feeling that developed between the two of them. She saw it simply as friendship. When she finally recognized the emotion as the love of a woman for a man, Jezebel became confused and frightened. She was a God-fearing Christian, after all, and as such believed love was meant to be between two human beings—anything else would be seen by the Church as unnatural. Yet she couldn't deny her own heart: despite the fact that they were born of distinctly different species, she was very much in love with the cauleter.
Jezebel felt it prudent that both the creature's existence and their love be kept secret, even from the servants. If they thought their mistress' behavior was sometimes a bit odd, they showed no sign of it. They performed their duties with the utmost efficiency and remained loyal to her, for she was a kind and generous employer. Still, the housekeeper had concerns for Jezebel's future.
"A beautiful young woman cooped up in that old place all day! It don't seem right," she confided to Hermione, who occasionally visited the mistress of the house.
"What she needs is time," Hermione observed. "She still grieves for her lost fiancé and her dead father."
"She has grieved way too long if you ask me. What she needs is to get out and meet people."
"By people, I assume you mean men," Hermione said with a smile.
"Yes. Men. She's already past the age when most women marry."
Hermione, who devoted her life to books and the pursuit of knowledge, had never married either and did not share the housekeeper's opinion that a woman needed to be paired with a man in order to be happy or to give her life meaning.
"When she's ready to jump into the mating race—if ever—she'll know. You needn't worry."
"Oh, I'm not worried—not really. I just hate to see a woman like that waste away on the vine."
Had an accident not befallen Jezebel Bonner on the eve of her thirtieth birthday, she might have been happy to remain in her home with the cauleter until old age closed her eyes for the last time. Fate, however, had other plans in store for her.
The evening started much the same as any other. Jezebel ate the dinner her housekeeper had prepared, and then she retired to the library, ostensibly to read but actually to spend the evening with the cauleter. They talked for several hours, and then Jezebel grew weary.
"I think I'll turn in now," she announced, rising from her chair beside the fireplace.
The cauleter, having no corporeal body, never grew tired, but he understood Jezebel's need for rest. He bid his love goodnight and faded into invisibility. Jezebel mounted the large grand staircase, heading toward her room on the second floor. As she neared the top step, she stumbled and fell backward. Moments later, she lay at the foot of the staircase, both her legs broken in the fall.
"Help!" she screamed, but there was no one to hear her—at least no one who was able to come to her aid.
The cauleter appeared at her side, offering her solace, but he could not set her broken bones or even fetch a doctor. Jezebel had to remain on the floor in excruciating pain until the servants returned in the morning.
* * *
Immediately upon his arrival, Dr. Lyndon Meadows gave the injured woman something to ease her agony. Unbeknownst to the good doctor and the housekeeper, the cauleter watched, invisible, as the two humans prepared Jezebel for a journey to the hospital.
The creature knew that, unlike his kind, human beings died. He fervently hoped the woman he loved would not be taken from him so soon. It had been more than two centuries—in human years—since he'd encountered a fellow cauleter. It might be centuries more before another one crossed his path. Should Jezebel die, he would be plunged into the quagmire of loneliness once again.
"The wagon is here, sir," the doctor's servant informed his master.
"Good. Give me a hand carrying this young lady out. But be careful. Her legs are broken, and I do not wish to cause her any further pain."
Dr. Meadows tried to make the ride to town as smooth as possible, but the road was bumpy, and every time the wagon jounced, Jezebel groaned with discomfort. Her brain called out to her love, but the cauleter did not answer.
He must still be at the house, she realized.
"Apart," she whimpered, losing her tentative hold on consciousness. "Always living apart from the others."
Dr. Meadows looked down at the beautiful, injured woman and vowed at that moment, that she would never have to live alone again.
After Jezebel's broken bones were set, she moved into a suite of rooms above Dr. Meadows' office, where the doctor could keep an eye on her and monitor her progress. During her convalescence, she did some serious thinking and came to the conclusion that she belonged with others of her own kind. Surely a human like Dr. Meadows was preferable to a cauleter. After all, mental communion with an invisible lover was no match for the warm touch of a fellow human being.
Once Jezebel's broken legs were mended and she was able to stand unaided, the first steps she took were down the aisle with Dr. Meadows. The newlyweds then moved into a small house near the doctor's office. The large brick house Jezebel had purchased after her father's death was closed, the furnishings covered and all other items stored away in trunks in the attic.
Jezebel and Lyndon Meadows were as happy as two newlyweds could be, but tragically less than a year after their wedding day, the young doctor died from a disease he'd contracted from one of his patients, leaving his pregnant wife a widow.
Once again, Jezebel ran from her grief and painful memories. With Lyndon gone, she returned to New Bedford. There, she gave birth to her daughter in the house on Pleasant Street, where she had lived with her father and where she had once paced the widow's walk, searching the horizon for signs of her fiancé's ship.
Despite the untimely loss of her husband, Jezebel's life was full and happy. Antoinette, her little girl, was a delightful child and became her mother's pride and joy, her sole reason for living. Yet there were times when she was reminded of the cauleter.
Had he been real? she wondered.
Perhaps he had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination, a product of her grief and loneliness.
* * *
All too soon little Antoinette blossomed into womanhood, as radiant a beauty as her mother had been. Jezebel knew it was only a matter of time before some eager suitor asked for her daughter's hand in marriage.
"I'm not ready to get married yet," Antoinette insisted. "In fact, I may never marry."
"You'll change your mind when the right man comes along."
"What about my father?" Antoinette asked, suddenly changing the subject. "Why is it you hardly ever talk about him?"
Jezebel was taken aback.
"I talk about your father."
"Only when I ask you questions about him."
"I didn't really know him all that well," Jezebel apologized. "We weren't married long before he died."
"What about his family? Why is our only contact with them an occasional letter or a card on my birthday and at Christmas time?"
"I only met his family twice: once at our wedding and then again at your father's funeral."
"Why don't we go down to Virginia and visit them? I want to meet them and get to know my father through them."
Jezebel sighed. She had long ago accepted her lot in life and had no wish to stir the embers of smoldering pain by returning to the South. On the other hand, her daughter had the right to discover her roots.
"All right. After the holidays, we'll travel to Virginia."
Rather than stay with her late husband's relatives, whom she hardly knew, Jezebel chose to stay in her own home, one that had been closed since she married Dr. Meadows. Her former housekeeper, who had stayed on as caretaker, made the house ready for Jezebel and her daughter.
"This place is beautiful!" Antoinette exclaimed when she saw the old brick house in Williamsburg. "Why did you choose to live in that drafty old place in New Bedford when you had such a beautiful house here?"
"Because New England is my home."
"Then why didn't you sell this place? It seems a shame to let it sit here empty all these years."
Is it empty? Jezebel wondered as she felt a strange movement in the air beside her.
"No."
Jezebel shivered. Was the voice in her head another product of her imagination?
"No. It is I, my dear."
"Mother, are you all right?" Antoinette asked as her hand reached out to steady her trembling parent. "You're as white as a sheet. Come sit down, and I'll get you something to drink."
Antoinette went to find the kitchen, leaving her mother alone in the parlor.
"I'm not really alone, am I?" Jezebel whispered.
"No."
"So, I didn't imagine you all those years ago. You're real."
"Yes. I lived with you here until the night you fell down the stairs and that man came and took you away. You never came back. I thought you had ceased to be like humans eventually do."
"I didn't die."
"I am glad, and I am even more pleased now that you have returned."
* * *
In the warm climate of Virginia, Jezebel became more outgoing, enjoying the many social engagements her late husband's family arranged. Antoinette, on the other hand, became more subdued, more introverted. Once the girl had the opportunity to meet all her relatives, she looked for excuses to stay home whenever she and her mother were invited out.
"Aren't you feeling well?" Jezebel asked with maternal concern.
"I'm just a bit tired," her daughter replied. "I think it's the warm weather here."
"The heat is a bit enervating after the cold climate of Massachusetts."
"Why don't you go to dinner without me tonight?"
"Oh, I don't want to do that."
"I insist. I'm going to do a little reading and then turn in early. You go and enjoy yourself, Mother."
"Well, if you're sure."
Antoinette smiled and gently pushed her parent toward the direction of the front door.
"Go, and have a wonderful time."
* * *
When Jezebel returned home later that evening, sometime after ten, the house was dark, except for a single light that burned in the foyer. Assuming her daughter had already retired for the night, she quietly let herself in the front door, tiptoed upstairs and got ready for bed.
Even though Antoinette was a grown woman, Jezebel could not go to sleep without first checking on her. When she opened the bedroom door, the mother expected to see her daughter in bed sleeping. Instead, she was surprised to discover that the bed was empty and neatly made.
"She must have fallen asleep on the couch in the library," Jezebel said with a sigh as she made her way down the hall. But the library, too, was empty.
"Antoinette?" she called.
There was no reply, just the echo of her voice through the still house.
"Antoinette? Where are you?"
Silence. Antoinette was gone!
A woman who had known more than her share of grief, Jezebel could not bear another loss. She crumpled to the floor and wept.
Suddenly the air around her grew warm and heavy. Her heart began to beat faster. It was the cauleter come to comfort her.
"Do not fear," his words assured her.
"My little girl is gone!" Jezebel wailed.
"No, I'm not, Mother."
Jezebel was overjoyed. She turned to embrace her daughter, but no one was there.
"Antoinette?"
"Don't fret, Mother," Antoinette's voice echoed in her mother's brain. "I'm here with my father."
* * *
The early morning light filtered in through the tall windows and dimly illuminated the long hallway. Jezebel awoke, confused and heartbroken.
"Are you still here?"
They both were.
"I don't understand any of this," she whimpered.
The cauleter explained, as best he could, how he had fathered Jezebel's child with a spark of life from the energy of his thoughts.
"But she is human."
"Half human," Antoinette corrected her. "I didn't know that until last night, however—not until I met my father."
"But you have a mortal body."
"That's true. I inherited my human form from you, Mother, but I also acquired an immortal, invisible form from my father."
"And you can leave your body at will and become a cauleter?" Jezebel asked with wonder.
"No. For me to become a cauleter, I had to forsake my human form entirely. You'll find my body at the bottom of the well."
"Why?"
The single word expressed a lifetime of grief and heartbreak.
"Because I will live eternally and forever be free of the ailments that inflict mortals."
Jezebel longed to hold her daughter in her arms, as she had when Antoinette was a child. She wished to brush the unruly auburn hair from her daughter's green eyes as she was wont to do. But these physical intimacies would be denied her from then on.
Jezebel took comfort in knowing her daughter was alive and that mother, father and child could live together in the house in Virginia until death claimed the human parent. She was even glad that father and daughter had forged a bond that would never be broken. Yet she mourned the loss of the human part of her child and felt the pain and loneliness of being the outsider, the different one, the one who would until the day she died live apart, unable to see or touch those she loved most.
Even when he turns himself invisible, Salem always makes his presence known!
