Loopwalker: A Haunting Across Generations

CHAPTER ONE 

Cabbagetown, Toronto — Winter, 1934

The Sound of Her World

My mother grew up in a world where sound carried farther than hope.

Cabbagetown in the 1930s was a neighbourhood stitched together by noise — the clatter of streetcars, the hiss of coal stoves, the calls of vendors, the rumble of factory machinery drifting across the Don River. The houses were narrow and tired, their bricks stained by decades of smoke, but they were alive with voices, music, and the constant hum of people trying to get by.

At eight years old, my mother didn’t understand poverty. She understood cold.

She understood the way her breath hung in the air when she woke. She understood the way her mother wrapped her baby sister in blankets because the incubator’s glow wasn’t enough. She understood the way adults whispered when they thought children weren’t listening.

But she didn’t have the language for hardship. Children rarely do.

What she did have was sound — and a deep‑rooted sense of responsibility, shaped by a community she had grown to know and quietly rely on. She new everyone and everyone knew her. So it seemed.

The radio was the warmest thing in the house.

It sat on a shelf near the kitchen table, a wooden box with a glowing dial and a voice that seemed to know everything. My mother told me she used to sit cross‑legged on the floor, listening to the announcer’s calm, steady tone. She didn’t understand the news — not really — but she understood the feeling of it.

When the announcer spoke softly, she felt safe. When he spoke quickly, she felt her mother tense. When he paused, she held her breath.

Music drifted through the house in thin, wavering notes — crooners singing about love she didn’t understand, orchestras playing pieces that made her imagine warm rooms and soft dresses. Sometimes her mother hummed along, her voice low and tired, and my mother felt a strange ache in her chest, as though the music was trying to fill something that had been empty for a long time.

On Saturdays, the radio played movie announcements:

“Now showing at the Pantages… Greta Garbo stars in…”“Shirley Temple’s newest picture…”

My mother didn’t know who these people were, but she imagined them as bright figures in beautiful clothes, living in warm places where coal smoke didn’t cling to everything.

She didn’t dream of being a movie star. She dreamed of being warm.

She dreamed of being safe. She dreamed of being someone her mother didn’t have to worry about.

Outside, the world was louder.

The Sheeny Man’s horse clopped down the street, pulling the rag‑and‑bone cart. Children ran alongside it, laughing, their cheeks red from the cold. Women carried parcels wrapped in brown paper. Men in worn coats walked with their heads down, hands shoved deep in their pockets.

She walked by the shops she had visited a hundred times, smiling at shop owners who knew her by name.. People she trusted when trouble arose and her parents weren’t around. She walked by the shops she had visited a hundred times, smiling at shop owners who knew her by name.

Posters were nailed to telephone poles — notices about soldiers overseas, fundraising drives, community events. She couldn’t read all the words, but she recognized the faces of young men in uniforms. She knew her father was gone, and she knew these posters had something to do with that.

She didn’t understand war. She understood absence.

She understood the way her mother stared at the radio when certain bulletins came on. She understood the way neighbours lowered their voices when talking about boys who didn’t come home. She understood the way her father’s boots sat by the door, empty, waiting.

She remembered her father opening the front door and tossing his ragged fedora into the living room, calling out, “If my hat stays in the house, then I guess I’m welcome.” It was one of those small, closely held moments that told her someone was looking out for her. She hadn’t seen that hat fly into the house in a long while..

Children don’t understand geopolitics. They understand loss.

Her baby sister had been born too early — so small she fit in the crook of their mother’s palm. The incubator glowed in the corner of the room like a strange lantern, humming softly through the night.

She felt responsible for her sister’s survival in a way no child should — yet it was a familiar feeling to any big sister who recognizes a helplessness that needs caring for.

She watched the incubator the way other children watched toys. She listened to its hum the way other children listened to bedtime stories. She checked the blanket to make sure it hadn’t slipped. She sat beside the crib when her mother was busy, humming softly to keep the baby calm.

She didn’t think of herself as a caretaker. She thought of herself as a big girl — someone who helped, someone who mattered, someone who made things easier.

Her dreams were small, but they were hers:

·helping her mother

·keeping her sister safe

·being strong

·being good

·being useful

Children in hardship don’t dream of escape. They dream of endurance.

My mother’s dreams were simple.

She dreamed of warm rooms. She dreamed of her father coming home. She dreamed of her sister growing strong. She dreamed of music drifting through the house. She dreamed of being older, wiser, someone who could fix things.

Her dreams were soft, gentle, shaped by the sounds of her world — radio music, streetcar bells, her mother’s humming.

They were the dreams of a child who believed the world was hard but not cruel.

The Dream

Sleep took her gently at first, the way a blanket settles over a child’s shoulders. The sounds of the neighbourhood faded — the last streetcar bell, the distant hum of a radio, the soft creak of the house settling in the cold. Her breathing slowed. The incubator’s muffled glow pulsed faintly through the blanket, a warm heartbeat in the dark.

Then the edges of the room softened, the wallpaper roses blurring into drifting shapes, and she found herself standing outside.

Not in Cabbagetown. Not anywhere she recognized.

She stood in a wide, pale field, the grass brushing her ankles. The sky above her was washed in a colour she couldn’t name — not blue, not grey, something in between. The air felt still, as though the world were holding its breath.

She wasn’t afraid. Just curious.

The field stretched out in every direction, quiet and empty, except for a small rise in the distance. A figure stood at the top of it — familiar, steady, her posture unmistakable even from far away.

She had never seen her grandmother — she lived in England — but she knew this woman. Her grandmother.

Not frail and fading, but younger, upright, her hair pinned neatly beneath a kerchief. She looked like she belonged in that field, as though she had been waiting there.

Her grandmother lifted a hand and called to her, her voice soft and familiar. “Mary. Mary, come with me.”

My mother felt a tug in her chest — not fear, not urgency, just a pull, like someone calling her name from another room. She began to walk toward the rise, her small feet sinking into the soft grass.

The field was quiet. No wind. No birds. No distant city sounds.

Just her grandmother’s presence.

She called out — a small, thin sound that didn’t seem to travel far. Her grandmother didn’t call again, but her expression softened.

My mother walked faster. Then ran.

But the faster she ran, the farther her grandmother seemed to drift away — not walking, not turning, just receding, as though the field itself were stretching between them.

She tried calling again. Her voice felt smaller this time.

Her grandmother lifted her hand once more — not in warning, not in fear, just in a gesture my mother couldn’t understand.

My mother didn’t feel threatened. She didn’t feel anything except confusion — the simple, innocent confusion of a child who cannot reach someone she loves.

The sky dimmed. The field dissolved. Her grandmother’s figure blurred into the pale light.

And she woke.

THE WAKING

She woke tangled in her blanket, her breath sharp in the cold air. The incubator hummed softly beside her, steady and warm. For a moment she lay still, unsure whether she had been dreaming or remembering something she had forgotten.

She didn’t feel frightened. Just unsettled — the way children feel when a dream doesn’t match the world they know.

Downstairs, she heard her mother’s voice — low, strained, speaking to someone at the door. A sound she didn’t recognize followed: a quiet sob, quickly stifled.

She climbed out of bed, her feet cold on the floorboards, and padded down the stairs.

Her mother sat at the kitchen table, a telegram folded in her hands. The stove hissed softly, its heat barely touching the corners of the room.

Her mother looked up, eyes red.

“Your grandmother passed in the night.”

My mother didn’t speak. She only nodded.

Not because she understood death. Not because she connected the dream to anything real. But because children learn early how to carry grief quietly.

She remembered the dream — the field, the unreachable figure, the soft gesture — but she didn’t think it meant anything. It was just a dream. A strange one. A vivid one. One that stayed with her.

Nothing more.

The Butcher Shop

Two weeks after the funeral, she walked home from school, her satchel bouncing against her hip. The streets were busy with women carrying parcels, men in worn coats heading to factories, children darting between horse‑drawn carts. The air smelled of coal smoke and fresh bread — the familiar scents of a neighbourhood she trusted.

Halfway down the block, a delivery carriage had stopped across the sidewalk, its wheels locked in place while the driver unloaded crates. A few children stepped into the street to go around it, boots splashing through slush.

My mother stopped.

She remembered the only time her father had ever punished her — the sharp crack of his voice when he saw her step off the curb to walk around a carriage just like this one. She remembered the sting of embarrassment more than the punishment itself, the way he knelt afterward and told her he couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to her.

That memory lived deep inside her, shaping the way she moved through the world.

So instead of stepping into the street, she turned and ran to the corner, her breath puffing in the cold air. She waited for the traffic to clear, crossed properly, and walked back up the opposite side of the road toward the butcher shop.

The delay made her heart beat a little faster — not from fear, but from the small, proud feeling of doing what her father had taught her.

As she approached the butcher shop, she saw her aunt across the street — her uncle’s girlfriend, a woman with a bright scarf and a laugh that carried. She waved. The woman smiled, lifted a hand in greeting, and stepped into the butcher shop.

My mother crossed the street, boots crunching on packed snow, and pushed open the butcher’s door. The bell above it jingled softly.

The shop was empty except for Mr. Fannelli, wiping down the counter with a damp cloth. The sawdust on the floor smelled faintly of meat and winter air.

“Hi Mary,” he said, smiling. “Can I get you something?”

“No thank you, Mr. Fannelli.” She stepped closer, her mittened hands clasped together. “Did my aunt come in here?”

He looked up, puzzled. “Your aunt?” He glanced toward the door, then back at her. “No one’s come in for ten minutes. Just you.”

My mother stood very still.

She wasn’t frightened — just confused. The kind of confusion that makes a child pause and look around, trying to make sense of something that doesn’t fit.

“She waved at me,” my mother said softly. “She came in.”

Mr. Fannelli shook his head gently. “I didn’t see anyone, sweetheart.”

He wasn’t dismissive. He wasn’t impatient. He was kind — the way adults are when they don’t want to tell a child they’re mistaken.

My mother nodded, though she didn’t understand. “Okay. Thank you.”

She stepped outside, the bell jingling behind her, and walked quickly down the street. The cold felt sharper now, the noise of the neighbourhood strangely distant. Her heart thudded in her chest — not from fear, but from the unsettling wrongness of the moment.

When she reached home, her mother was waiting at the table, hands folded tightly, her face pale in the kitchen light.

“Your aunt passed this morning.”

My mother didn’t speak. She didn’t need to.

She remembered the bright scarf. She remembered the wave. She remembered the smile.

She remembered the empty butcher shop.

She didn’t think of shadows or spirits or anything beyond what she had seen. She only felt the heavy confusion of a child who doesn’t understand how the world can contradict itself so sharply.

She carried that confusion silently — the way she had learned to.

For the rest of that winter, she carried both moments quietly — the dream of her grandmother and the wave from her aunt. She didn’t talk about them. She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t try to understand why the world had shown her something that wasn’t true.

Children don’t analyze. They absorb.

She helped her mother with the baby. She walked to school. She listened to the radio. She watched the streetcars rattle past the window. She hummed to her sister when the incubator’s glow dimmed.

But every so often, when she passed the butcher shop or saw a woman in a bright scarf, she felt a small tightening in her chest — not fear, just a quiet confusion she couldn’t name.

She didn’t think the dream meant anything. She didn’t think the wave meant anything. She didn’t think the world was trying to tell her something.

She simply remembered.

And the remembering stayed with her.