Finton Moon (51 page)

“No one in this house can lecture me about anything,” he said. “Way I see it, there's too much water under the bridge.”

“Yes. You might be right about that.” She nodded sadly. “But people only do what they think is best at the time. No one meant any harm to ya. Just remember that.”

Then he heard footsteps, bare feet on canvas, and a voice that gave him chills: “Finton?” Elsie emerged from the hallway in her billowy, blue nightgown, arms folded across her chest. He hadn't really wanted this. He realized that now. The mere sound of her voice made him sad. But he didn't mind leaving; he mourned the relationship they never had. “Were you leavin' without saying goodbye?” she asked.

“I didn't think you were getting up,” he said. “You knew I was going.”

Elsie seemed as if she was about to scold him again, but she was interrupted by the sight of Tom entering the kitchen, yawning and swiping his hand through his tangle of hair. “Jesus, b'y—you're goin' awful early, aren't ya?”

“I got a ride waitin',” he said. It was only a small, convenient lie.

“Are ya sure? I don't mind drivin' ya.”

“No, that's all right.”

“Well,” said Elsie. “You write to us when you get there.”

“Where are you goin' again?” asked Tom.

“I'll write,” Finton said. “I promise.”

The kitchen filled with an awkward silence that lasted only a couple of seconds, just enough to remind Finton of why he was leaving.

“See ya.” He nodded, turned and then, with merciful quickness, he was gone.

His last image of Nanny Moon was her standing in her grey night dress, a sad look on her face, his mother looking perplexed in her baby blue gown, and Tom, patting his chest and glancing towards the table where his cigarettes lay beside the ashtray.

Finton closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Finally, he shuffled outside into the dark, wet landscape and shut the door behind him. Not once did he look back.

By the time he'd reached the bottom of Moon's Lane, the drizzle had misted his face, drenched his hair and soaked through his backpack's exterior. Every step he took for those first thirty minutes, he considered aborting the mission. But he soldiered on, bolstered by his out-loud singing of Beatles' songs. By the time he'd reached the bridge that opened Darwin to the rest of the island, he had launched into “The Long and Winding Road.” The clouds split their seams and poured their vendetta down on his head—a baptismal soak that was to be his judgment. The weather was an obstacle, but a mere piffle to his innate obstinacy and pure determination to escape from it all.

Nearly two hours after leaving the house, he stood, soaked to his skin, at the access road. He stopped and read the sign:

You are now leaving Darwin. Come again soon!

Of course, if, by some miracle, he made his destination, that place of his dreams would be filled with everything good and there would be no need ever to return to Darwin. Another hour or so later, he arrived at the highway and stood beneath the gigantic green government signs with their bright, white lettering telling him how many miles to get from that precarious spot to everywhere. He found himself wondering—a flickering thought that briefly transfixed him—what would happen if he veered left instead of right, towards the interior—deeper into the heart of provincial darkness—rather than away from all he had ever known? Wearily, he resumed his predetermined path, trekking southward along the highway, hoping somebody would come along to offer a lift. The rain might keep people from traveling unnecessarily, but surely to God, even on such an ungodly morning, there'd be someone else escaping Darwin.

As he approached a particularly solid wall of mist and fog that seemed anchored to the road, he found himself immersed in a world of whiteness, full of silver shadows and muffled noises. Events of yesterday tumbled around in his mind.

Alicia's eyelids trembled partway open, and she gazed with concern into her father's face. When she saw her mother peering down at her, she closed her eyes again. When she opened them once more, she saw Finton, but shut her eyes.

A few minutes later, she was lying on a gurney being wheeled through the Emergency Room on her way to X-ray. A handful of Dredges remained in the waiting room because only the parents were allowed to escort her through those demoralizing double doors. Surveying the landscape—Dredge to the left of him, Dredge to the right, in front of and behind him, sitting in chairs, on the floor and under the coffee table—Finton closed his eyes and prepared himself for the long night ahead.

He endured the chatter and noise, the hum of fluorescent lights, the crying of a baby, the dull metallic groan of the Pepsi machine. But he couldn't ignore the internal chatter, reminding him that tomorrow would be even harder—and life, after that, might well be more difficult. He would get up early, creep outside and hit the road, come what may. He was finished with school and Darwin, its people and its church. The further he walked away from it all, the better he would feel, and the more possibilities he would see for himself. He didn't know what he was going to do, but getting out of bed tomorrow morning and forcing himself out the front door would be a beginning. It would be easy to just forget his plans, just stay home, and live out the rest of his days. But it would also be the hardest thing he'd ever done, and he'd never be done doing it until the day he died.

The doctor emerged and told Finton Alicia had asked to see him. The Dredge family appeared unimpressed.

She was lying in a bed, covered in a white sheet, face exposed and a white bandage wrapped around her head, her right arm in a sling. Her smile lacked enthusiasm. “Now I know why we don't climb trees anymore.”

“It wasn't anybody's fault.”

“Just mine,” she said. “I shouldn't have gone up there. But—”

“But you were trying to get away from me—”

“I was trying to show you that we can still climb trees, silly. That we shouldn't give up on being childlike just because we're not children. Does that make sense?”

“It would make more sense if you didn't have a concussion and a broken arm because of me.”

“But you saved me—” She tried sitting up, but had to slide back down again, letting her head rest gently on the pillow. “I think I might have died without you.”

He stuffed his hands into his pockets because the urge to hug her was strong. “I think you got lucky.”

“No—really, Finton. Did you—” Her voice trailed as she closed her eyes. Just when he thought she'd fallen asleep, she opened them again and finished: “I thought I went somewhere—with you.”

“You were in my arms the whole time.”

She smiled at the reminder. “Yes,” she said. “We were floating. We went really, really high… and the planets were bright—red and yellow and green suns all around.”

Finton tried to suppress his smile. He'd never heard anyone else describe the journey to his planet. It was as if she'd actually been there—meaning he hadn't gone there alone or just in his imagination. “I call it the Planet of Solitude.”

A shadow of concern crossed her face. “You mean we were actually there?” When he nodded, she asked, “How is that even possible?”

“Don't tell anyone.”

She promised not to, but her confusion was evident, and he was pretty sure his own bewilderment was obvious too.

A gargantuan black pickup truck came roaring through the fog like a colossal dragon, its bright yellow fog lamps like eyes, and chunky, black wipers swiping side-to-side like flapping wings. He stuck out his thumb and stared into the fog lamps, but his heart leadened in his chest as the driver accelerated. The tail lights winked at him just before they disappeared into the mist, and he was left alone with his thoughts.

He wished Alicia had come with him. He wished he'd never left Darwin.

He knew she wouldn't tell anyone about the Planet of Solitude. No one would believe her—or they'd think he was insane, and Alicia had sense enough not to bring that down on his head. She seemed to believe him, that the planet was real and that he had the ability to bring people there, heal their injuries and illnesses, then bring them back.

But, in this case, that wasn't what had happened. They had shared a thought, and that was that.

“It wasn't you,” she'd said. “It was me.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you didn't make me better. Look at me—I'm still not very good. But I'm better than I was.”

“So… I cured you.”

“Tell me this—whenever you healed somebody before, did they get better right away, or did they take awhile?”

“Right away.”

“Exactly. Otherwise, genius, there's no miracle. You can't have a miracle after you go home and take two aspirins and call the doctor in the morning. A miracle is spontaneous. It happens right away, right before your eyes and that's how everyone knows it's a miracle. But look at me—still in bed, still in bandages—arm in a sling.”

“We could take the bandages off.”

“You try and you'll have to wear bandages yourself.”

Finton understood. He didn't need to tell her that. He just sat by her side, listening to her talk. She was obviously already beginning to heal, and he couldn't help but wonder if he'd played a role in that. Watching her, though, he also wondered what had actually happened. She was far too chatty for someone who'd suffered a concussion.

“Are you listening to me?”

“I'm sorry—what?”

“I said, maybe that's all it ever was—maybe you never cured anyone. Maybe they healed themselves, and all you did was give them a placebo—you made them think they could be better, and so they were.”

“I think you got hit a little too hard on your head.”

“Is it that hard to believe? Are you that egotistical?”

“Why are you saying all this?” He stood up then, hands plunged into his pockets. “I thought you were on my side.”

“I am. But I can't let you go on deluding yourself. A friend would tell you to get a grip.”

“But you saw—you saw what happened with Bernard.”

“It was dark. I didn't see anything.”

“People came to me. And I healed them.”

“No one really gets healed, Finton. They all die, eventually. You can't escape that.”

“What about Miss Bridie? What about Mary?”

“Easily explained, and you know it,” she said. “I think they weren't ready to go, and you gave them something—where are you going?”

“I'm gettin' outta here.”

“Don't be such a—Finton!”

He didn't even say goodbye.

The blaring of a horn jolted him from his daydream. But not at first. It was more the glare of headlights, shining onto the pavement before him. Even though he leaped into a ditch and twisted his ankle, the driver didn't stop, merely leaned on his horn as he zoomed past, the wet pavement whistling through the treads of tires.

For the first time in a long while, Finton felt like crying—he just wanted to sit there in the soggy ditch, knapsack twisted around and clutched to his stomach, and bawl as if he'd just been born and slapped on his behind. But he couldn't will the tears to come. The rain pelted his face. The fog banks drifted past like mountains of mist, and right before him, in a whisper-thin clearing, stood a large, scrawny, grey dog, with its head lowered and appearing startled. As Finton stared back, the creature bared its yellow teeth and emitted a low, rumbling growl as it started to lope forward. Finton was mesmerized by its jaundiced eyes that appeared more frightened than he was himself. Still, he wondered if, after so much had happened and with freedom so near, this was how he was fated to die.

The dog—which reminded him of the “wolf” in the cage at the circus last summer—maintained steady eye contact, but it never came closer than a couple of feet as it passed beside him, slipped into the thicket, and vanished. The apparition had occurred so quickly that Finton could barely compose a thought. But, considering how far they were from the nearest town, he might well have just witnessed a kind of quiet miracle. Still trembling and yet strangely revitalized, he climbed out of the ditch and back onto the shoulder of the road, keeping a watch on the spot where he'd seen the wolf melt into the woods.

Limping slightly, he got himself moving southward again.

His heart and his clothing grew heavier with each step forward, and the deluge kept coming. Even his skin felt waterlogged beneath his clothes, inspiring the thought that he could not get much wetter unless he were water itself.

He had no idea where he was or how far he'd travelled, for the fog was so dense he could not read the signs and, without a horizon dividing one from the other, the pavement was indistinguishable from the downpour—all wet and all black. A handful of vehicles zipped by like blinkered phantasms—a school bus, a garbage truck, and a few vehicles that looked as if they were stuffed for vacation. The thought should have made him smile, but there were days when the weather on this island incited anger that could only rightly result in defeat. The very notion of travelers on the same miserable road as him, seeking heaven and freedom amid such perpetually horrific conditions, was so irresponsibly optimistic he could only shake his head.

He plodded along, sneakers squishing and backpack scraping, fifteen minutes removed from the last car sighting, so he occasionally walked on the asphalt, knowing he could easily scoot aside if a car happened to come along. The silence on the highway was startling and lonely, inspiring him to wonder how it could be that, at the moment of his greatest freedom, he felt such insignificance in the pattern of all things, such removal from the joys, comforts and concerns of humans. With the roadside trees standing silently tall, like grim witnesses to a brutal test that could only end in tragedy, it was obvious that this journey was leading in one direction, towards his own physical and mental devastation. Immersed in such unsolvable greyness, how could his fate be otherwise? Without even a fleeting light to interrupt the immortal darkness, what reason could there be for hope or faith?