The Foundling

by Ian Whippy

back in the high chair. “You may be a little thing,” she said. “But to me you’re a sack of coal, so you are!”

  After their breakfast, Maeva sat down with some old skirts and her sewing kit and began making a little outfit for the child. While she did this, the boy (who she’d decided to call Conall, after her dear husband) played at her feet. She’d given him a ball of yarn, just as she’d done to amuse her cat many years ago. Suddenly, Conall gave the yarn a bat with his hand and shot the ball along the stone floor and out the open door. With a blur of wings, he flew out after it. Maeva dropped what she was doing and struggled to her feet.

  “Conall!”

  Moving as fast as she could, she made for the door. When she got outside, she strained her eyes for all they were worth. But she couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Just as despair began to creep in, Maeva’s eyes filling with tears, a tugging came at her skirt. There he was, standing at her feet. Yes, standing.

  “Am I just being a silly old woman, Conall,” said Maeva. “Or do you look … older?”

  Bringing the tot back in side by the hand, she reflected on her words. Conall did seem to be a year or so older than only moments before. This was truly amazing to her. Everything about the boy amazed her. It seemed that he had learned to walk just so that old Maeva wouldn’t have to carry him any longer. And for that she was grateful.

  The days that followed were blissful for Maeva. She was more content than she’d been in many a day. Conall made her feel needed. He made her feel like a mother, something she had never been. There was always enough food for them both. Whenever she opened the cupboard, there was loaf of bread, a packet of porridge, or a tin of tomatoes. By her reckoning, they had been there all along. It was just that her eyesight had improved. And why shouldn’t it? She was so much happier now.

  Odd things continued to occur, things she couldn’t explain. Squeaky doors abruptly lost their squeak. Windows that had refused to open now did so obediently. And – praise be to God! – the toilet was flushing properly again.

  Little Conall was more than just a good luck charm – he was an absolute tonic. Maeva hadn’t felt so alive in years. Much of that had to do with the fact that she was eating so well. Food always seemed to find its way to her table. After several weeks of this, she no longer looked at it as mysterious. She’d come to expect it.

  And it wasn’t just food. Exploring her house had become her new hobby. She found all kinds of things that she never realized she had – lovely fabrics to make new clothes out of, books she remembered from decades past and was excited to read again, and even boxes of light bulbs.

  It was the morning of the first day of March, and an extremely content Maeva decided to stay in bed an extra half hour - a luxury she had never given in to in over eighty years. Conall was no doubt awake and playing with the stuffed animals (two rabbits and a little lamb) that she’d made for him.

  After ten minutes, she got up to go look in on him.

  But he wasn’t in his room. Neither was he anywhere in the house. Her only fear of recent weeks abruptly resurfaced. He had done what he was perfectly capable of doing. He had flown away, back to whence he came.

  Hands trembling, eyes welling with tears, Maeva took her cane and made her way to the front door, which was slightly ajar. Perhaps, just perhaps, he was outside.

  The bright light of the morning hit her full force. But it wasn’t the sun.

  When her eyes adjusted, she found herself looking up into a pair of magnificent blue eyes. A young man with blonde hair and a kind face stood in the doorway. He wore a white toga of a material that shone. Framing his broad-shouldered form were a pair of huge, alabaster wings.

  “Conall?”

  The entity looked perplexed. Then it wasn’t Conall, Maeva realized. He didn’t even know what the word meant! But surely an angel would know everything about mankind! If, that is, this was an angel...

  “A child,” the man said. “Barely able to talk, or fly...”

  “Yes!” replied Maeva enthusiastically. “I’ve seen him!” She laughed. “Silly old woman. I’ve been taking care of him! Sure, he’s been taking care of me, so he has!”

  Now the young man looked surprised. “Taking...care of you?”

  “Yes! I’ve been so alone. There’s no one left to come look in on me. And then – there he was! Lovely little lad. He certainly is blessed with the gift of charity, praise be to God!”

  There was a fluttering sound behind the angel, and the man turned. When he turned back again, he was smiling broadly – and there was Conall, clutching on to his parent, crushing his cheek excitedly to his father. Now Maeva understood. At least, she understood more than she had done before.

  “I’m...I’m happy that you’re back together again,” said Maeva, her shrunken eyes starting to well with tears. “I suppose you’ll be going back up now.”

  “Up?” repeated the angel parent.

  “To heaven.”

  “We come from far away,” he explained. “But our place of origin is not called ‘heaven’. We survey worlds like yours, worlds with life similar to our own, though in a much less advanced state of development.”

  “I see,” said Maeva, trying not to let her confusion show. “So you came here is some kind of ... craft?”

  “We don’t need craft.”

  Maeva was utterly amazed. “Lord above. Isn’t it wondrous! So, tell me, please, if you would ... how is it that my life has changed so much, just when I took the little lad into my home?”

  The man looked at his son, who responded with an even tighter hug of his parent’s neck. “It is curious, to be certain,” he agreed. “My child has no powers or abilities, not in the way that you describe. He cannot change lives. None of us can. It would seem, my friend, that you have changed your own life.”

  Her eyebrows rose, making soft furrows in her aged forehead. “I did? Sure, how could I have done that? I’m just an old woman with head full of fluff.”

  “It is the reason that we chose this world,” he told her. “All that any of you need to improve your lives is hope or even the belief that things will get better. When you think in that fashion, things change. It is a gift.”

  “A gift from God!” Maeva breathed.

  The entity smiled, not really comprehending. He nodded nonetheless.

  “Now, friend, we must depart.”

  He turned to go.

  Her hand flew to his shoulder. It felt warm and tingly, as light given form.

  “Wait, please!” she pleaded. “Let me give the little lad a kiss goodbye. It would mean the world to me, so it would.”

  Proudly, the man held out his little son for Maeva to kiss. The boy returned her kiss enthusiastically. It was the happiest goodbye Maeva had ever known.

  * * *

  Maeva spent the rest of that day pondering about what had happened. Not for one moment did she think it to have been a dream. No - she was much sharper than that. Conall had been real, as had the lad’s father. She didn’t quite understand what they were or how they got from there to here, but that hardly mattered. Their existence was undeniable. It had left too much of an impression on her soul, and her life.

  The very next morning, Maeva did something remarkable. Taking her well-worn cane firmly in hand, she set to walking down the road. One step at a time, she kept telling herself, one step at a time.

  “Maeva!” exclaimed Mrs O’Shaughnessy, the shopkeeper. “Lord Almighty – you didn’t walk all the way here by yourself, did you?” She hadn’t heard a car pull up; the old woman had to have walked!

  “I did, Nuala,” Maeva confirmed proudly. “Thanks be to God, I did.”

  “Aren’t you marvellous, altogether?” beamed Mrs O’Shaughnessy, folding her arms in amazement. “Now, what can we do for you, Maeva?”

  “A loaf of bread, please, Nuala,” Maeva said. “And one other thing. A moment of your time...”

  “Of course, Maeva. How can I help you?”

  “It’s time made my li
fe better. I want to sell the old house and move here in to town. I can be near the shops and close to folk who can give me a hand now and then.”

  “That’s great,” said Mrs O’Shaughnessy, full of admiration for the old woman. “What’s brought all this on, Maeva?”

  Spying a chair in the corner of the shop, next to a small mountain of stacked oatmeal boxes, Maeva made her way over and sat down. Her aching feet sighed with gratitude.

  “Surely to God, Nuala,” she glowed, “it was in me all along.”