We all harbour secrets—some strange, some frightening.
Carl Jung carried around the remnants of a bread knife that mysteriously shattered into pieces inside his sideboard. I think he kept it as a symbol of something for which he had no adequate explanation.
What knives do you carry? Do these curios prey upon your memory and occasionally keep you up at night?
I have my own mysteries, safely tucked in my head like Jung’s knife—they defy explanation—but are strangely comforting.
My hidden life began when I was eight years old and my family was living in a very old row house in Toronto. The house was built in the 1880’s and had a dirt cellar and a coal chute.
It constantly creaked and made strange noises. My Nanny told me it had ghosts.
I saw a ghost there one night in Nanny’s room. The creaking house had frightened me and I scampered down the hall and crawled in beside her.
Later, I was awakened by a noise. I peered over her sleeping form and saw a man in top hat admiring his reflection in the dresser mirror.
He was dressed in the style of a bygone age and was quite a dandy. He stood preening himself, twisting his moustache and fussing over his appearance. But then, he glanced up and saw me. He glowered and I sheltered behind Nanny, hiding under the covers.
“Did you look again to see he was gone?” Billy asked.
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“Too scared, I guess.”
He pushed his glasses up on his nose and gave me a disdainful look.
“I would have gotten out of bed and told him if he didn’t get out of there, I’d call my father.”
I gazed at Billy in admiration. Billy was a pudgy science nerd with coke-bottle glasses and a penchant for acting rash. The week before he had carried out an experiment involving burning things in the wood furnace—his father found telltale ashes on the floor.
I wondered how eager Billy’s father would be to chase a ghost at three am.
Most of what happened to me back then, I kept a secret.
I was a dark, brooding boy—a perpetual observer. I found it hard to share my feelings—and Billy hadn’t helped in that respect.
I resolved to be even more discreet in the future.
That fall, I went into Grade Three and my teacher was Miss Tracy—she was a beautiful, young girl with long blonde hair and a soft voice. She liked me—Why, I don’t know, but I soon became her project.
Maybe it was my dark brooding stare—maybe she just thought I was needy. Who knows? But quickly enough, her fidelity to me was tested.
Patrick brought in a huge magnifying lens for show and tell. It was larger than a dinner plate and very powerful. We all wanted to look through it and I got to do that more than the others because Patrick was my friend.
He put the lens inside his desk and we all went out for recess. When we returned the lens was gone.
Miss Tracy didn’t panic.
“Now, I’m sure someone knows where the lens is, so just tell me and it’ll be all right.”
The silence was deafening. Donald MacDonald, who was ten years old and still in grade three, shouted out. “Someone stole it.”
Miss Tracy was horrified. “I’m sure no one stole it, Donald—they just meant to look at it and now they’re frightened to return it.”
“Like I said, they stole it,” Donald yelped.
Miss Tracy stood him in the corner.
When I acted out, she allowed me to sit under her desk. I liked that—especially when she sat down and I could be close to her and the red and yellow tartan skirt she wore.
Tartans would be forever more bound up in my mind with the colors of autumn leaves and Miss Tracy’s skirt.