by Ali Shaw
Finn looked back. ‘There’s nine or ten people following us. Are they friends of yours?’
‘I have no idea who they are. Finn, I have a bad feeling about this. Can we just skip our tour and go back to your bothy?’
‘Elsa, I don’t think we need to be frightened of them.’
The small crowd was still out of earshot, but she whispered nevertheless. ‘You have a coat of cloud, Finn, all over your skin. They’re the ones who will be frightened.’
‘Well, if they say anything, perhaps I can persuade them that there’s nothing to be scared of.’
Elsa sighed. She looked up at the rooftops, where the weathervanes were all pointing away towards Old Colp. ‘I don’t know, Finn. Call me crazy, but can we just get out of here?’
She heard her name called again.
‘They want to speak to you.’
‘I don’t care what they want.’
‘Okay,’ he said, and they cut back on themselves down Auger Lane.
Before they reached the next junction a man stepped out in front of them, his hands tucked in his pockets. He wore the same rain cap and coat as most men of the town, but still she recognized him from his plump neck and intrigued eyes.
‘Just thought I’d head you off here,’ said Sidney Moses, ‘to ask you a question or two.’
Elsa glanced across at Finn. He did not appear at all troubled, even though – she bit her lip – cloud still hung against his skin like dusty cobwebs.
‘We’ve got places to be,’ she said.
The small band of townsfolk caught up with them, one or two of them out of breath from the speed at which they’d followed. She didn’t like how grave they looked, nor how they all hung back from taking the final few paces towards Finn, glancing instead to Sidney for guidance.
‘Haven’t you all got something better to be doing?’ she asked.
Sidney licked his lips but didn’t answer at once. A pair of magpies took off from further down the street and flew overhead, arguing in rasps as they went.
‘The thing is,’ said Sidney carefully, ‘that Sally Nairn just saw something.’
‘That’s him, Sidney,’ said the stern-faced woman in the shawl.
‘Sally said she saw a kind of fog around this boyfriend of yours. And lo and behold ...’ He gazed with a mixture of disgust and fascination at the delicate vapour that smudged the air around Finn.
Finn folded his arms. ‘I have a name, you know, which you can address me by if you can be polite enough to ask for it.’
Sidney turned his attention to Finn. ‘When Miss Beletti arrived in Thunderstown, it wasn’t long before we all knew her face. Yet I don’t recognize yours, lest it’s from a story I once heard. When did you arrive?’
‘I’ve always been here.’
Elsa winced. ‘Finn, this guy just wants trouble ...’
‘It’s okay, Elsa. They’re just confused by what they’re seeing.’
Sidney nodded. ‘What are we seeing, exactly?’
‘I have a storm inside of me.’
The crowd wrung their hands and whispered to each other. Sidney looked as if he had unearthed buried treasure. ‘Do you admit to it, just like that?’
‘I am not ashamed of it any more. And I’m sick of hiding up a mountain. I’m as safe to be around as any of you.’
Sidney puffed himself up. ‘You are very brazen, to come down here and say such things, after all that you have done to us.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ said Elsa, rolling her eyes. ‘He hasn’t done anything.’
Sidney didn’t take his gaze off Finn. ‘We know who you are.’
She tugged at Finn’s hand. ‘Come on, Finn. Let’s get going.’
‘You are Old Man Thunder.’
She bristled. ‘Don’t be so stupid. You know nothing about Finn. How could you possibly suggest that?’
Sidney glared at her. ‘Just because Kenneth Olivier says you’re welcome in Thunderstown, it doesn’t mean that you are. He isn’t much welcome here either.’
One or two of the crowd looked doubtful at that, but they didn’t protest. Elsa’s stomach knotted when she saw how quickly their obedience overcame their doubts. She became acutely aware of how greatly they outnumbered her and Finn. Again she tugged at Finn’s arm. He didn’t budge.
‘Daniel told me about you, Mr Moses,’ he said. ‘But I thought he’d made you out to be worse than you actually are.’
While they had been talking, the strands of cloud clinging to Finn’s bald head had thickened. Now they were as opaque as ash. Sidney watched them with grim interest, and turned to the crowd. ‘Look at him! Look at his skin. What do you see?’ One of the townsfolk whimpered, ‘Weather!’ and they all started burbling like frightened hens.
Elsa remembered the fear on these same faces on her first day in Thunderstown, when Daniel killed a wild dog. A cold anticipation locked the joints of her elbows and knees. ‘Finn, please,’ she said, wishing she could spirit them both away like a magician.
‘Prove it,’ said Sidney.
‘Prove what?’
‘Prove that you’re real.’
‘What do you mean? Of course I’m real.’
‘You would say that. But we don’t think you are. We think you’re a storm, pretending to be a man.’
Deny it, Elsa thought, even though there’s cloud all over you.
‘I’m not pretending. I am a storm, and a man as well. But I’m not Old Man Thunder.’
Sidney gaped at the crowd with theatrical disbelief. ‘Do my ears deceive me? First he looks like a storm masquerading as a man. Then we give him a chance to deny it, and instead he pleads guilty!’
The crowd had bunched up shoulder to shoulder. Abe Cosser’s left leg was jittering, his old boot rapping off the stone road.
‘Come on, Finn,’ said Elsa, tugging at his arm.
He resisted. ‘No, Elsa. We can make them understand. What proof do you want from me, Mr Moses?’
Sidney reached down to his belt and unclipped the knife that was attached there. He offered it, still sheathed, to Finn, saying, ‘They say Old Man Thunder can’t bleed.’
Finn didn’t take the knife. ‘I’m not going to cut myself open for you. Don’t be ridiculous.’
But as he spoke a wind blew down the street and tried to steal away the cloud clinging to his skin, stretching it out for a moment like silver tresses, then scattering it across the air. In the crowd, a terrified Abe Cosser commenced the Lord’s Prayer.
‘Does it always have to be the case,’ asked Finn, and there was a rumbling edge on his voice that didn’t come from his vocal cords, ‘that people find devils in the things they don’t understand? Believe me, I’ve been frightened by myself too, but doesn’t that make me all the more able to explain it to you? I used to think I was a kind of monster, but all it took was a little kindness to realize – ’ he squeezed Elsa’s hand in recognition ‘ – that I’m just like any of you.’
For a moment Elsa was proud enough of him to forget her anxiety, but when she turned triumphantly to Sidney he had spread out his arms to address the townsfolk and she could see where this was headed and it was as if her heart had dropped out of her.
‘He admits to it!’
‘He didn’t admit to anything,’ said Elsa, but her voice sounded reedy.
‘He admits,’ declared Sidney with steely composure, ‘and that’s all we need to know.’
The crowd looked like a satisfied jury.
‘He didn’t admit,’ objected Elsa, ‘because there’s nothing to admit to.’ She wished they had just kept on walking. Even if the crowd had besieged them in the bothy they could have at least locked them out. She remembered suddenly a fight on the sidewalk a few years back, some alcohol-fuelled altercation between a stranger, who had said something about her, and Peter, who had drunkenly tried to stand up to him. ‘Let’s go, Finn. All he wants is a fight.’
Finn was about to say something more, but she pulled his arm so hard that he got the message, no
dded and turned away. Together they walked down the street, but no pace was fast enough for her. She felt like she was trapped in a flinch. All of her clothes felt too small.
‘Don’t look back,’ she whispered.
They walked fast along Auger Lane then turned off into Candle Street, which led uphill towards Old Colp’s reclusive slopes. A scruffy cat, who had been sleeping on a yard wall, fixed its yellow eyes on Finn and hissed. The crowd trailed them and she hoped like hell that, when the going got steep on the mountain slopes, they would lose interest. Above Old Colp the clouds appeared to be clearing. The sun flung late light through the gap, and all of Thunderstown’s shadows lengthened.
Suddenly Finn lurched forwards and clutched the back of his head. Elsa heard something rattle off the flagstones. It was a nugget of slate. Finn crouched, blinking hard with pain, one hand held to his crown. She could hear the air hissing out where the slate had cut him. At first she couldn’t move because a panic filled her up as if with needles. Then she exclaimed ‘Finn!’ and grabbed hold of him. ‘Are you okay?’
He nodded groggily. Wild-eyed, she spun around to confront the townsfolk, but Sidney Moses looked as surprised as her. Somebody else had thrown it.
Finn had still not stood upright, and now there was a deeper noise behind the hiss from his cut, a noise like a distant train passing. Layers of dark, heavy gas opened out of the cut like the petals of a flower. The cat who had hissed at them sprang down from its wall and fled as fast as its four legs could carry it.
Elsa railed at the townspeople. ‘You should be ashamed of yourselves!’
They all ignored her, enraptured by the dusky cloud growing out of Finn’s gashed scalp. It grew fat and puffy, a gaseous tumour expanding by the second.
Elsa crouched beside him, supporting his shoulder and whispering his name. He was staring, dazed, at the floor, with his face beaded by drops of clear water. Every now and then one of them welled big enough to fall and splash against the road. The cloud kept swelling, now the size of his head, now twice the size. Then it skewed and distended, and broke open across his back so that he was crouched under a fleecy heap. Elsa tried to think of what to do, but her heartbeat was a din in her ears. All she could think was to squeeze his arm and whisper his name. Beneath the cloud his shirt had become damp.
The townsfolk edged closer, until she snapped at them, ‘Get away from him!’ and all bar Sidney Moses took a step back.
‘Elsa ...’ whispered Finn, and when he spoke a patter of rainwater dribbled over his lips. She whimpered to see it, and clung to him tighter.
‘Finn? How badly are you hurt? Do you think you can stand? Here, I’ll help you.’ She steadied herself to support his big frame and helped him, although she was a very shaky prop, back to his feet. The cloud spilled to either side as he stood, so that he was framed in an oval of fog. It kept coming from him, pouring out grey filaments so that he looked like a smouldering effigy.
‘Who ...’ he began, and more water dribbled over his chin and fell in a sheet to the road, ‘threw ...’ He swooned for a second and she had to throw her whole weight against him to help him regain his balance. At the same time the cloud mushroomed and a shadowy cap rose out of its highest point. A raindrop formed and plinked off the flagstones. Her own clothes were becoming speckled by them. Her breathing had become sharp, each inhalation like a slap to her lungs.
‘Who did this?’ Elsa hissed at the crowd. ‘Show yourself.’
Heads turned to quiz one another, and then the crowd parted and left little Abe Cosser isolated, clutching another pebble of slate in his shaking fist.
‘You ...’ said Finn, then spat out water again, ‘don’t need to be frightened. The weather is just like you.’
Abe looked from Finn to Elsa to Sidney to his peers, but all seemed to have cut him loose. He looked down at the slate in his hand. ‘Lord have mercy,’ he muttered, and threw the stone at Finn.
Elsa shrieked when it struck Finn in the jaw and his head snapped sideways with a gargle. She had to catch him again, grabbing hold of him and leaning into him to help him steady his balance. She wished she was bigger and stronger: she had never felt so slight in all her life. He pawed at the cut the stone had made, which immediately began to fizz with gas. His jawline became bandaged with it, a second outpouring that pushed the cloud to new heights. In no time at all its dense cap had bulged some ten feet into the air, while to the left and right it unfurled like a wingspan. A chill trickle condensed on the back of her neck and raced down beneath her collar.
‘Finn,’ she gasped, holding him up, ‘do you think you can walk? Do you think we can get out of here? I’ll help you, Finn.’
She threw one of his arms over her shoulders, but she did not have the strength to pull him along with her. She looked back through the cloud that was now swirling tightly around them, and saw Abe Cosser still stranded from his fellows, trembling and clutching one more stone.
‘Please, Mr Cosser,’ she cried, ‘please stop this!’
Abe looked at her with rabbit-in-the-headlights eyes but, before he could respond, Sidney Moses stepped up beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re a good man, Abe. Whereas this is not even a man at all.’
‘Please,’ Elsa implored them, ‘please leave us alone! We’re going away! We’re going anyway! You don’t need to do this!’
Sidney shrugged. ‘This does not concern you, nor your plans. This is saving our town from the weather. Best to step away from it now, Miss Beletti. It’s a cloud that has duped you into thinking it’s a man, but as you can see its disguise is easily removed.’
‘He’s both!’ Elsa tried to get Finn to take a groggy step towards Old Colp. She did her best to guide him, but with each plod she feared they’d both tip over.
‘Step away from him, Miss Beletti.’
She ignored him. It was going to be difficult to get Finn up the mountain in this state, but once they reached the bothy she would look after him and not leave his side until he had recovered. Now the cloud had become too large to see its extremities: it had filled the street from eave to eave and shut out the sky. She squeezed Finn’s hand, and much to her relief, he said, ‘Thank you, Elsa,’ amid a patter of drooled water.
Abe Cosser threw the stone.
It scuffed off the top of Finn’s head and clattered away somewhere against the wall. Finn went down, pawing at his scalp, and an instant spout of soot-black cloud gushed up into the greyer stuff that fogged the road. Elsa shrieked and knelt beside him, but the cloud wrapped them up too opaquely for her to even see her outstretched hands. People were shouting and someone grabbed her beneath the shoulders and she was dragged across the rough paving screeching and thrashing. She kicked someone but it made no difference. She could see nothing in the fog, save for gloomy outlines closing in on Finn.
But he lit up.
For a split second, lines of white fire branched through his body. It was as if his entire nervous system had turned to light. She heard Sidney screech and smelled burned meat. Then the light fizzed away into the stone and the flagstones reeked of coal and the townspeople erupted into shrieks and yells. Elsa was dropped roughly on to the floor, and she heard people fleeing in every direction, and somebody mewling like a baby while they hoisted him away.
When she stood, she was too frightened to straighten her spine. Nor could she close her mouth, since her lips were seized back in a grimace.
She staggered through the fog with her arms out in front of her, and nearly tripped over Finn when she found him lying on the road. He was on his back with his arms and legs outstretched. His eyes were open but unblinking.
‘Finn!’
She grabbed his hand and clenched it between hers. His fingers felt more brittle and thinner than she remembered them being.
‘What did they do to you, Finn?’
Still the cloud thickened, and now it steamed so dense that even when she bent her face down to touch his it made a veil between them. She held on tightly to his hand, but
it felt light now like something he had made from paper. Through such fog it was impossible to tell how badly they had hurt him in those last moments, so all she could do was throw her other arm across him and cling to his torso. ‘Hold on,’ she whispered, not knowing what else to say. ‘Please hold on.’
Yet the issuing cloud did not hold on. It became a blindfold. She clung to him as he became fragile and frail. His chest seemed to shrink and harden. She pushed her lips against his, hoping that to kiss him might save him, but his head felt skeletal in the murk and his lips were like the wrinkled skin of a deflating balloon. She kissed them regardless, and they were limp and rubbery between hers. She heard something barking above her, and something howling in the sky. His soaked shirt sagged over his accentuating ribs. His fingers, when she groped for them in the fog, were as thin and cold as icicles. Then for a moment she thought she felt warmth return to them and she yelped with joy, but it was just her own fingers, for his had melted away . She clawed around to try to find them again, but they had vanished and her fingernails scraped on the stone of the street. His ribcage sank and was flat. Panic filled her. She chased her lips after his, but they only kissed wet stone where his head should have been, and she was lying face down in the thickest fog of her life, with only Finn’s soaked and emptied clothes between her and the cracked surface of the road.
She lay on the floor, convulsing with sobs. The cloud fumed around her until, eventually, it began to rise into the air. The rain knocked on her back, but she did not move. It pulsed across the road and rang off the walls. After a while she found the strength to roll over and feel the water scattering her face and making her clothes weigh heavy.
The cloud had lifted off the ground and formed a charcoal ceiling for the street. Because she did not know what else she could do, she groped around her until she had bundled up Finn’s empty shirt, drenched jeans, underwear and the new shoes she had bought him for his impromptu birthday.