Enter, Night (52 page)

The rocks came again, this time harder and more insistent. She ran
to the window and tried to see outside, but it was impossible. This time
the stones bounced off the glass directly in front of her.

“Go away!” she screamed. “Leave us alone!”

The voice that answered her was as clear as water. A soft voice. A
boy’s voice.

“Morgan. It’s me, Finn. Come outside.”

“Finn?” she cried joyously. “Is that you? Are you OK?”

“It’s me, Morgan,” he said. “I’m OK. Come outside.”

“I can’t, Finn,” she said. “I’m not allowed.”

Finn’s voice was impatient. “Come to the front door of the church,
anyway. I’ll be on the front steps.”

Morgan looked at Christina sleeping on the pew. “Mom,” she
whispered. “Mom, wake up. Can you hear me?” There was no answer.
Christina slept on. “Finn’s here. I’m going to go and see him. I’ll be right
back. Is it OK?”
She won’t even know I was gone,
Morgan rationalized.
I’ll
be back before she wakes up. Finn’s alive! Finn’s alive!

She walked the length of the nave and opened the church doors wide
to welcome Finn back.

Finn stood on a small rise
of accumulated snow on the lawn of the
church.

His feet looked frail and blue in the light, and there was no
disturbance in the snow leading in any direction to or from where stood.
The wind whipped his dark hair about his face and the fabric of the
pyjamas billowed ludicrously around his thin body.

Morgan stared. “Finn? Is that you? What are you doing there? It’s
freezing
! Come in here where it’s warm.”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he said ruefully. “I’m always coming to you, aren’t I?
I wish I was older so I could have been your boyfriend, then I could have
taken care of
you
.”

“Finn, what are you talking about? You
did
take care of me. You
saved my from my grandmother back at the house. You saved my life.”

He went on as though he hadn’t heard her. “You’re really pretty,
Morgan.” He looked like he could be blushing, but in the light it was hard
to tell. “Can I tell you something?” He sounded gently embarrassed, but
didn’t wait for her to answer. “I . . . I love you, Morgan. I guess I have,
from the moment I saw you outside the school that day.”

“Oh, Finn.” Morgan’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t a
better friend to you. I’m so sorry.”

He paused. “You know, right? You know what happened to me?”

Morgan shook her head, but even as she did so, she realized she
did
know. She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The tears that had been
brimming in her eyes spilled down her cheeks.

“He took me away,” Finn said darkly. “He took me to the caves up by
Spirit Rock. He
changed
me. To punish me. You know. For, well, for what I
did. You know, with the holy water.” Finn shivered. “He did awful things
to me up there,” he said. “He’s terrible, Morgan. He’s so
old
. He’s been
waiting up there for hundreds of years. Waiting for someone to wake him
up. Someone did. Some crazy person. That day I found his bag with all
the knives in it—that was his. For waking
him
up.”

Morgan glanced back towards the church doors, feeling a sudden
stab of fear. She clapped her hands over her ears to block out the sound
of Finn’s voice.

This isn’t Finn, dummy. It used to be, but it isn’t, now. He’s something
. . . well, someone else. Like Grandmother Parr was.

But then, Grandmother was sort of like that even before, wasn’t she?

Finn sighed. “I’m the same person, Morgan. I’m not going to hurt
you. I promise. And you were hearing me in the church even though I was
outside, so don’t bother covering your ears.”

Morgan’s voice quivered. She pointed through the open doors, into
the nave. “My mother is in there. She’s sleeping.”

“Your mom won’t wake up till I want her to. She’s just asleep, don’t
worry.”

“You won’t hurt her, either? You promise?”

“Your mom is a nice lady,” Finn said, sounding wounded. “She
was nice to me. I would never hurt her.” He smiled, showing the small
pearlescent fangs of a twelve-year-old boy on the edge of manhood, a
state he would never attain. “She was nice to me. Of course I won’t hurt
her. I needed to see you before . . .”

“Before what?” she demanded.

He was silent, unmoving from his spot atop the mound of snow.

“It hurts,” Finn said. His voice was small and hollow, even where it
echoed inside her head. “It hurts something awful. It’s not like I thought
it would be. In my comics, the vampires forget about their lives and they
stop feeling bad about it. Not me—I remember
everything
. And I still
miss my dog. Sadie tried to protect me from this. She knew what was
waiting up here.”

Morgan was trembling. She wrapped her arms around her torso and
rubbed them, trying to warm herself.

“You’re cold,” Finn said. “You should go inside.”

“I don’t need to go inside. But is it OK if I run inside quickly and get
my sweater? Do you want to come inside and get warm?”

“I can’t,” Finn said. “I can’t go in there.”

“Why not?” Then she thought about it. “Oh, right,” she said. “Sorry.”

Morgan realized she should feel safer knowing Finn couldn’t cross
the threshold of the church, but instead it just made her feel sad. “I’ll
be right back,” she promised. She knew he could probably stop her if he
wanted to.

But he just said, “OK,” and shrugged.

Morgan hurried up the nave to the place where Christina was still
fast asleep—if anything, in a deeper sleep than before. The dark circles
under Christina’s eyes seemed to have faded by degrees, as though Finn
were actually healing her mother from where he stood on top of the snow,
outside the church.

I could stay in here and never come out.
She picked up her sweater from
where it lay on the back of the pew.
I could leave him out there in the cold
and the snow and the night and never have to see him again. These things
can’t come into churches. But he’s not a ‘thing,’ is he? He’s Finn. He’s my friend.
He saved my life.

Morgan saw the St. Christopher’s medal lying on the pew next to her
mother. She picked it up and slipped it into her pocket.

“There’s a house over there,”
Finn said, pointing across the snowy
lawn after Morgan returned with her sweater. “Behind the manse. It’s
empty. Do you want to go in there?”

“What for?” Morgan said, suddenly fearful again.

“Because it’s cold out here, dummy, obviously,” Finn teased. “And
even if I’m not cold, you are. I can tell. You’re still shivering. I know you
have that medal in your pocket. You could use it if you wanted. I wouldn’t
be able to stop you. Besides, I told you not to worry.”

Morgan’s voice was incredulous. “How do you
know
all this stuff?”

Finn shrugged again, but this time it was a self-conscious shrug.
“Some of it from
The Tomb of Dracula,
some of it from
Dark Shadows
. Some
of it from . . . from him. He steals people’s memories, then he shares
them with us. The rest of it I just know.” He tapped his chest and his head.
“I know it in here. I don’t know how, I just do.”

She thought about it for a moment, then said, “OK, let’s go to the
house. How do you know it’s empty? Or that it’s open?”

He glanced briefly at the dark window on the second floor. “Trust
me. I’ve been inside already.”

The living room was plain
but clean. There was a photograph of Pope
Paul VI on the wall above the television set, but no books anywhere.

The unmistakable odour of boiled cabbage clung to the cheap
curtains, indeed had seeped into every porous surface in the living room.
Morgan hated boiled cabbage, especially the way it smelled when it was
cooking. At that moment, however, it reminded her of her neighbourhood
in Toronto, and she just felt homesick.

Sitting next to her on the plastic-covered sofa, Finn said shyly,
“Morgan, can I ask you a question?”

Her voice was gentle, but teasing “That’s one question already,
Finnegan.”

“My mom called me that,” he said.

“What was the question you wanted to ask me?”

He hesitated. “Have you ever . . . well, have you ever, you know . . .
like, had a . . . a . . .”

“A boyfriend? Is that what you’re asking? If I’ve ever had a boyfriend?”
If he could blush,
Morgan thought,
he’d be beet-red.

Mutely, Finn nodded his head.

“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Finn?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“Why not?” She took his hand lightly in hers, finding it ice cold.
“Have you ever liked a girl before?”

“Only you,” he said, looking down. “Never before. Nobody else.”

She brought his hand up to her face and laid it there. He leaned
forward clumsily to kiss her on the lips but missed, landing the kiss on
her chin instead. Morgan inclined her head and kissed him tentatively on
the lips.

Blood thundered in Morgan’s ears and her face flamed. “Finn, just so
you know, I never . . . well, I’ve never had a . . . a boyfriend, either.”

Finn pulled away as though burned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m such a
jerk. Why would a girl like you want to kiss somebody as ugly as me? I’m
sorry,” he said again. “I’m so stupid.”

Morgan sat very still, as thought considering. Then she unbuttoned
the top button of her cardigan. Then the second. Finn watched, his eyes
wide.

“Finn?” In the dark living room, Morgan’s voice sounded alien, even
to her—thicker, fuller, almost a woman’s voice now.

Outside, the wind picked up, blowing thick fistfuls of snow at the
windows. Morgan shrugged the sweater off her shoulders, letting it fall
behind her on the sofa.

“What?” Finn breathed.

“You’re not ugly. You were never ugly.”

“I’m not?”

“No,” Morgan said, reaching for him. “You’re really not. You’re really
beautiful to me, Finnegan.” She hesitated, then said, “Finn?”

“What?”

“Do you promise—
really promise
—that you won’t hurt me?”

“I promise, Morgan,” Finn said. “Cross my heart.”

They held each other close,
naked in the makeshift bed of ottoman
cushions and crocheted afghan blankets on the floor of the immaculate,
chaste house that smelled like boiled cabbage and carpet deodorizer,
under the photograph of Pope Paul VI.

Morgan had asked Finn if he wanted to go upstairs, but he seemed
to panic at the thought, insisting instead they stay in the living room.
When she asked him why, he shook his head and said, “Here is good. Here
is fine.”

Later, in her arms, Finn’s icy body didn’t warm, but neither did
Morgan’s body catch the cold from Finn’s and chill in sympathetic
response. They tempered each other, explored each other’s bodies with
their hands and mouths, wondering at the bevy of sensations aroused as
each touched the other in places they’d never been touched before.

“Morgan,” Finn whispered in her ear when they were finished.
“Would you stay with me?”

“We’re leaving in the morning,” she murmured. “I can’t stay here.”

“No,” he said. His voice was ineffably sad. “I mean, just for a little bit
longer. Just for tonight. I just don’t want to be alone.”

Morgan leaned up on her elbow and looked at him quizzically. “What
do you mean? Of course I’ll stay with you tonight. Why? I mean, what
else would I do?”

“Just a bit longer,” Finn said, gazing out the living room window at
the lightening eastern sky.

Morgan realized
she must have dozed off, because when she opened
her eyes, Finn was kneeling at her side, shaking her arm with nearly
violent desperation.

“Morgan,” Finn said urgently. “Wake up. I need to ask you something.”

“What?” she muttered, still mostly asleep. “What is it? Are you OK?”

“Morgan, would you do something for me if I asked you to?”

“Sure,” Morgan said. “What?” Then her eyes opened wide and she
focused. The scream caught in her throat, becoming a sharp gasp instead.

Finn was sweating blood—literally. It covered him like a delicate,
dark red mist, a ruby dew that made his skin shimmer when he moved.
He wasn’t bleeding, exactly—instead, the blood was a fine, thin, glowing
roseate spray that was becoming more opaque by the second.

“Finn,
oh my God
! What’s
happening
to you?”

“It doesn’t hurt, Morgan, I promise it doesn’t. Not yet.”

“Finn! What’s happening to you?”

“Morgan, do you love me?”

“Yes! Yes! I love you! Now tell me what’s happening!?”

“I need you to help me, Morgan,” Finn said, his voice breaking. “I can’t do this by myself. You have to help me. Please?” He looked towards the
window where the sky was now bright enough for her to see everything in
the room. Then back at Morgan with pleading eyes. “Do you understand?”

Morgan started to cry. “No, Finn, please. I can’t,” she sobbed. “Don’t
ask me to do
that
. I can’t. Stay with me. We’ll figure something out, I
promise. Please, Finn, please. I just
can’t
!”

“Listen to me,” Finn said gently. “I want to find Sadie. I want to be
with my dog again. I miss her. I want to be somewhere else—I want to
be in the place I was in before all this happened. I want to go home. A lot
of bad things happen in Parr’s Landing, but it isn’t all bad. Nothing is
all
bad.
I was happy—I had my mom and my dad. I had my school, and my
comics. And I had Sadie. I want to hug her. I want to go for a walk with
her again, up on Spirit Rock. This morning—now. But I can’t do it by
myself. My body won’t let me.”

“What do I have to do?”

Morgan thought she had never seen a more loving or radiant smile
in her life. Finn pointed to the door. “Just walk with me. Out there. Out
into the sunlight. Where Sadie is. And if I can’t do it, push me.”