Free The Stories That Haunt Us by Bill Jessome Page B

returned.
    The Amiro Mystery
    T his story takes place in July 1900. Rosalie Amiro of Pubnico, Nova Scotia, left her home to go into the woods to collect tree bark and woodchips. She was never seen again.
    One hundred and three years later, the question is still being asked. What ever happened to Rosalie Amiro?
    This much we do know: She left home with a large basket to collect the tree bark and wood chips from trees her husband and other woodsmen were chopping down. She probably ventured close to where her husband was cutting, but, as I understand it, she didn’t speak to him, and moved deeper into the woods, away from the woodsman.
    She crossed paths with two young girls who were picking blueberries. Wanting company and someone to talk to, Mrs. Amiro invited them along, but they declined as it was close to suppertime and they had to get home. She bade them farewell and took her leave of the girls.
    As mealtime drew close, Mr. Amiro, after a hard day’s work in the woods, headed home to have his supper. Night came, and still there was no sign of Rosalie Amiro. So out of character was Rosalie’s behaviour that a search party was quickly organized—even a wedding party joined in the search for the missing woman, as did the crews of two American fishing vessels that were in port. The search lasted for days and covered miles of the woods. In the end, though, Rosalie Amiro was never found.
    What fate befell her?
    According to Edward D’Entremont of lower east Pubnico, who included in his “Whisperings of the Past” booklet a description of the area where Mrs. Amiro was travelling, she probably fell into one of the bottomless sinkholes scattered throughout the swampy area. It’s pure speculation, but that is all we can do when faced with another Maritime Mystery.
    Captain Swaine’s Secret
    A deline Colby said goodbye to Toronto, got in her car, and headed for Nova Scotia’s south shore and a new life. She had already bought a two-hundred-year-old cottage that had been vacant for many years but was, according to the real estate agent, in surprisingly good condition, considering.
    The cottage reportedly sat high above a wind-swept cliff overlooking the waters of the Atlantic. During the several phone conversations Adeline had with the real estate agent, he told her that she was buying a “getaway place,” a place of isolation. It sounded perfect to Adeline, and she bought it, sight unseen, and made arrangements with the local bank to hire a handyman to get the place ready for her arrival.
    Adeline was forty years old and strikingly beautiful. She was tall and slender, and had what some would call cheekbones to die for. She had sparkling green eyes and warm auburn hair. A graduate of the University of Toronto, she won a job in public relations, moved on to Queen’s Park, and kept moving up until she became the woman who was always a step behind the premier of Ontario. People said she had it all, but she was never satisfied or happy—something in her life was missing. She knew what it was, but would never face up to it because of the drastic upheaval it would bring to her lifestyle. But when she saw her on-again, off-again boyfriend arm in arm with his ex in the lobby of the Royal York, she realized it was time for a change.
    Adeline decided that day to pack up her dreams and head east to her father’s childhood home. She remembered her own wonderful days as a child visiting Nova Scotia, warm summer days at her granny’s cottage along the Fundy shore. She never knew her paternal grandfather, who had been lost at sea. When she’d ask her father where he came from, where he was born, he’d lift her high above his handsome head and shout, “Why, child, don’t you know? I’m a Shubieman!” When he was dying he asked to be cremated—and his ashes? He told the family to do what they wanted with them. “Chuck ‘em along Highway 401 for all I