Finton Moon (8 page)

“People are just afraid of her because she's different. She's just lonely,” he said.

“She's a witch,” said Finton. “That's why people are afraid o' her.”

“She's not so harmless as all that, and you bloody well know it.” Elsie suddenly stopped scraping dishes and turned to face her husband, a frilly blue apron around her waist, a green cup towel attached to her right hand and a peanut butter glass pressed to her left. Her eyes shimmered with fear. “She might be lonely, but she made her own bed. She shoulda kicked Morgan outta the house the day she quit school. I know I wouldn't have the like in my house. And I wouldn't have her mother either. She's wicked, Tom. I don't like the way she looks at me.” Her voice trembled, as she pounded the glass once against her thigh. “It's like she hates my guts or something.”

Tom sighed, swallowed his tea. “You're imagining it, Elsie. She looks at everyone that way.”

“The youngsters—especially Finton.” Finton's head jerked towards his mother. But she would not meet his gaze, merely continued to focus on drying the glass in her hands until it surely verged on cracking. “The youngsters are all afraid of her.”

“And I s'pose you're not.” Tom set his tea cup gently in its saucer. Then he deposited the saucer onto the empty plate, eliciting a tiny clinking sound. He stood up, walked out the front door, and closed it softly behind him.

“To bring that woman under this roof,” he heard his grandmother rasp unseen from the dark living room where the curtains were drawn shut, “is dancin' with the devil. And we all know how that works out.” Her rocking chair creaked steadily. “Whole nudder tune then, by God.” Finton hadn't a clue what she meant, but her words gave him chills. His mother draped her cup towel over the oven handle and crept to her bedroom where she stayed for the rest of the morning.

Miss Bridie's living situation wasn't mentioned again. She simply continued residence in her burnt-out home. The shell remained intact—the roof would hold, but would certainly leak when it rained. The outside was charred like burnt paper and smelled of smoke. But at least the Indian summer had returned, and the nights were usually not too cold.

Finton was impressed by how hard his father worked all month and well into October. Joined on the weekends and in the evenings by kindhearted Francis Minnow, Tom toiled every day at Miss Bridie's house, first installing a new plywood door, then systematically pulling out the burnt planks of siding and hammering in new ones before tackling the roof that needed to be rebuilt. Homer would help out occasionally by driving the nails where his father told him. The middle brother seemed to enjoy his apprenticeship role, demonstrating a talent for making and building, while Finton preferred an observational position. Clancy was more interested in mechanical repairs, but even he showed up at Miss Bridie's to help with painting and lifting. All autumn long, the pounding of nails echoed like gunshots from across the river. Sometimes Finton would perch on a large branch overhanging Moon's River and watch, pretending he was under siege and singing “Davey Crockett” to himself.

He saw Miss Bridie only once that whole autumn when she brought out glasses of water to the three amateur carpenters. In her twig-like hands, she held forth the sweaty tumblers as if they were gold goblets of Communion wine; she plodded in a way that reminded Finton of a prisoner of war—head down, taking small, unsteady steps. And yet in daylight she appeared surprisingly young. Perhaps she had even been nice-looking once. In fact, he could imagine her as a fine lady, twirling an umbrella in her white-gloved hands while the men bowed to her on bended knee, requesting her hand in marriage. But the sound of present-day voices brought him back to reality, and everyone returned to being who they really were.

Resting at the two-thirds rung of the rickety wooden ladder, Tom wiped his glistening forehead and took the proffered glass in the same hand. He nodded his thanks and hoisted the glass as if to toast the lady of the manor. “Got to get this sealant on before that big storm gets here. She's gonna come on pretty hard, I hears.”

“I got trust in ya, Tom. I dare say I'll be better off than most.” Miss Bridie didn't stay for long. “Ye got work to do, so I'll leave ye to it.” She stayed for a few minutes and watched, then said something to Tom which made him stop his work and look down at her. Laying a hand on the toe of his boot, she spoke again in a low voice that Finton couldn't hear. His father nodded, appearing to be thinking about something, and then the woman ambled back to the house.

Finton had heard about the tropical storm on the news last night. After cutting a swath through the Carolinas and killing over a hundred in Pennsylvania and New York, she was destroying houses and stranding tourists in her sweep up the Eastern Seaboard. According to the radio reports, people in Maine were boarding up their houses and heading inland. That same brute was hurtling towards the coast of Newfoundland.

That night, with his eyes closed as he lay in the bottom bunk, he thought about Miss Bridie, probably also lying awake in a leaky old shell, exposed to the wind and rain, too frightened to get out of bed. He also wondered about Sawyer Moon, whether he was out in the woods tonight, huddled in a secret cave somewhere, having fallen over and injured himself, unable to get up.

Finton's eyes came open, confronted by the dark window at the foot of his bed. A low, angry rumble preceded a faint blue flash that lit the sky. As the noise died down, he heard murmuring from his parents' room. Finton's stomach knotted. He loved thunder and lightning, thrilled to booming winds and pelting rain. But he knew what would happen next. He had just pulled on his pants when the thunder growled, followed by a blink of yellow light. He sat upright in his bunk, holding his breath.

Footsteps flew. Knuckles tapped on the bedroom door. “Boys!” his mother called. “Get up. We're sayin' the rosary!”

Finton groaned. It wasn't the storm he feared, but the rosary.

Clancy had his own bed in the same room, and he wasn't keen on leaving it. “Why do we have to go through this every time? It'll pass without the rosary.”

Heavy footsteps and no whispering from the father. “Get out in that living room, get down on your knees, or I'll brain ya!”

Homer had already clambered down from the top bunk, dressed, and exited to the kitchen. But Finton lingered in the doorway to witness this latest squall between his oldest brother and their mother. Surprisingly, Clancy flipped the covers away and tramped past Finton in his underwear, bare feet slapping the hallway canvas.

Elsie Moon was an acknowledged master of the ancient Catholic art of Speed Rosary, in which punctuation was forbidden. “Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” No one could plow her way through a Hail Mary as fast as her. Finton aspired to keep up, but he left out words, and his tongue felt like a pebble skipping across a lake. The haste only added to the mystery since Finton didn't have a clue what he was saying. “Blessed is the fruit of thy womb” was particularly mystifying, as was the exclamation “Jesus!” each time.

When rosary began, Finton felt as if he were a passenger on a runaway bus. When he was asked to lead a section, it was like being made to drive, without lessons, without brakes, and with no idea how to stop—and he dragged his whole family with him. It was supposed to be a sombre “Our Father” followed by ten Hail Marys, as counted on the beads that Nanny Moon had given him for his birthday—simple math. But Finton was always speeding up or forgetting where his fingers should be.

“That was only nine,” his mother would say with a sigh. Or, “That's twelve, Finton.” Sometimes she'd just bring it to an abrupt end, inserting an “Our Father” and crashing the rosary bus into a wall.

The worst times were when one of his brothers started to laugh. Mirth was even more sinful than hesitation, for his father knew that once it started, rosary laughter, like funeral laughter and school laughter, was impossible to contain. And it would always end badly, with someone getting hurt.

The night of the storm, Finton didn't feel like laughing; he was frightened by his mother's behaviour—the way she cringed with each crash of thunder, the way she gripped her beads as if God was a dog that was trying to get away from her. Between rounds, Finton asked if someone should check on Miss Bridie. But his suggestion was met with silent indifference. He realized it was wrong to speak nonrosary thoughts at such a time, but he thought God would not mind him voicing concern over one of his lost flock. He glanced out the window and thought he saw someone slip past.

In the middle of Finton's rosary, an anxious knock came on the outer door.

“Keep going,” Nanny Moon urged. In a grey flannel nightgown that reached her ankles, she knelt on the rough carpet, leaning forward, hands clasped and elbows resting upon the mahogany coffee table, whose spindly legs buckled slightly.

“But—”

“Don't stop the rosary, Finton.” Elsie Moon spoke in a rising, barely controlled voice.
What's wrong with her?
he wondered. Couldn't she hear the person at the door? A gust of wind slammed the house and made it groan. A burst of light fractured the darkness, and thunder rumbled a sermon. Finton sputtered, “The Lord is with thee,” but the pounding on the door punctuated each syllable. “Blessed—art—thou—amongst—”

“Tom!” came the shout from outside, like a plea for refuge.

He looked at his father, who finally stood up in his white undershirt and underwear, trudged in his wool socks out to the kitchen, across the linoleum, and grabbed the doorknob. “Keep going,” he commanded Finton, who forgot about “women” and started on the next “Hail Mary.”

“Hey!” he was shouted down by Clancy. Nanny Moon and Elsie raised their voices: “Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners now—”

He heard rushed mumbling, his father swearing, and the door crunching shut. “And at the hour of our death, Amen.”

“Elsie.” Tom leaned against the doorway, one hand on the door frame as if to support his entire weight.

The praying paused. Elsie Moon glared at her husband. “Come finish the rosary.”

“Morgan's here.”

“Tell her to come in and say the rosary.”

“You can say it yourself,” said Tom. “I got to go.”

“It's always something with that woman,” said Elsie. “She can bloody well wait. Now, kneel down and finish the rosary.”

Tom glared daggers at her, then rushed to the bedroom.

With a glance towards Morgan, Elsie resumed the rosary, the slowest one Finton had ever heard, the words ridiculous and yet terrifying. He shuddered when she recited, “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen,” because he realized they were praying for souls already lost.

Meanwhile, Morgan stood in the kitchen, jean jacket drenched, blonde hair rain-dyed brown, head bowed and dripping onto the linoleum. With her face hidden, she appeared small and distant, yet somehow sturdy and rational. Not speaking, she simply just stood there waiting, a nightmarish vision.

Tom emerged fully dressed and paused only long enough to don his shoes and grab his coat. “Come on,” he said and seized Morgan by the elbow to lead her out.

Minutes later, the rosary done, Finton blessed himself and leaped to his feet.

“Where are you goin'?” His mother's eyes narrowed and her lips clenched.

“Miss Bridie's. I wanna see.”

“Get to bed, Finton.”

But, if only for that moment, he was more his father's son than his mother's. He raced out the front door in his bare feet and brown corduroys. His mother unsuccessfully grabbed for his arm, but she managed to block Clancy and Homer from following.

The rain lashed his face and the wind pulled him forward, down the dark lane. When he reached the river, lightning torched the sky behind Miss Bridie's house.

He saw his father's black shadow on the Battenhatch front porch, timorously pushing open the brand new, glistening door.

Finton veered the corner of the lane. No pause, no punctuation—skipping steps. He leaped onto the front porch and, with a soft thud, landed inside.

In the blackness that swallowed him, a sour stench brought tears to his eyes. His head pounded in unison with the beating of his heart.

He could make out his father's silhouette—a black ghost kneeling beside the motionless body of a woman.

He wanted to ask if she was dead, but felt he shouldn't speak. Inwardly he prayed a Hail Mary, closed his eyes and listened to the sound of his father's voice, a half-whispered, hushed, and reverent tone that the boy found soothing. Tom spoke her name as a statement: “Miss Bridie.” He expected a reply. “Open your eyes now. Yer bleedin' and we gotta go to the doctor.”

He'd seen dead people on
Gunsmoke
, so Finton knew she was gone. But some native authority in his father's voice inspired an expectation that she would obey.

A whistle of wind through cracks in the eves pulled Finton's eyes open. Raindrops plopped from every corner of the ceiling. Puddles on the bare plank floor progressed into small ponds. One dark pool he knew did not leak from above, but from Miss Bridie herself. It seeped from her stomach and spilled over the sides of her thin frame—as if she had laid herself down in a pond of blood.

He had no idea how long he'd knelt there, watching the two shadows that seemed linked by the darkness between them. In the dark, not speaking, not staring at anyone, Miss Bridie seemed human. He could almost feel sad for her. Could almost love her because of her uncompromising monstrousness. He wished with every fibre of his body and soul that she would not be dead.

His father raised his voice, more demanding but without fear or questioning. “Miss Bridie.”