She awoke on a wooden floor, saw the wide back of Vincent bent over the open door of a woodstove, one knee on the floor. Prodding something with a metal poker. Hard to see. She stretched. A mound of gray and cream inside the stove, something dead, flames dancing around it, not wanting to consume it. What was he doing? She sat up, hands slapped on the floor to steady herself. A peculiar ache resided in her joints, her limbs. Then, she fell backwards, squeezed her eyes closed. There was dampness between down below, and she was sure she had soiled herself. Eyes open again, she watched the creature inside the stove as it gradually succumbed, began its conversion into soft ash.
Smell like burnt remains. Reminded her of a fire on the beach, when Baby Mackie’s son, Clipper, had peeled a rotting mound off the rocks, tossed it in for a joke. Thought forming, forming, alarm triggering in her chest. A minute or two to comprehend, remember where she was. Who she was. Glanced about, and sure enough, near her bare feet, her father’s kit bag was unzipped, fabric flaccid. His seal fur coat gone.
Like an insect, two legs amputated, she scuttled across the floor towards the stove, tried to reach into the flames. Vincent knocked her away, and back she came, crying, “Nooo, nooo. Mister.” He slammed the iron door closed, rammed the handle of the door downwards, locking it, and growled, “Stop, beetch. Bring garbage to ma home. Make ma floor stink.”
“Nooo, nooo.” Down on front paws, begging, a submissive wolf.
“Is gone, now. Is gone.” He clamped a firm hand around her skinny upper arm, bone bending as she was lifted to her feet, front door opened, and flick of a feather, she was on the street with no coat, no shoes. Sensation of a snowball between her legs.
Plunked down on a sidewalk, heavy slope, row of pretty painted houses, and no idea how she had gone from wherever she had been to where she was now. Empty kit bag in her arms, she stood, raised one foot, then the other, soldier legs taking the easiest path. Down, down the hill. Past men and women, arms locked, singing and laughing, dapper hats and fine coats. Clicked their tongues, said “Hey, Miss. You’ll catch your death.” But she rolled onwards. Weaving, stepping onto the road, smacking into rough brick, hands out to steady herself as the sidewalk lifted and buckled, knees marching high on this strip of rippling cement.
From up above, she could see herself staggering, then lurching. Mumbling. Nowhere for her to go, every way she turned led to nothingness. She was on a street of stores, doors locked, lights out, and beyond that were the rough rims of the earth. Over the edges, watery blackness moving up and down. She would go there, throw herself in. No one would notice a slip of a girl floating amongst the rusting boats. Just one step. Not much at all. You can do that, Wilda-beast.
Yeah. I’m coming.
She turned herself around, and was taking a second step closer to the harbor when an icy gale shot up the tunnel made by the buildings, lifted her hair. Frost invaded every pore, and she began to shake, a little at first, then violently. Teeth clanking, hands waving, she was blown sideways first, several steps backwards, then up and into a dark alcove. The entrance of a small store. Her head struck against the colored window of the door.
One sharp knock. Bone against glass. A sound even the deaf would hear.
Hands on her now, warm, gentle hands, guiding her through a door towards comfort. She knelt on the floor, and opened her eyes, looked up into the face of God. Silver tufts of hair by his ears, baggy skin around his veiled eyes, half-moon glasses dangling on a tarnished chain looped around his neck. “Hello, Lord,” she slurred when she first looked into the face of Francis. “Hello.”
“THOSE ARE THINGS I did, Lewis. Things I did. I don’t blame anyone but myself.” She stared at the flames, thought about that open oven door, her father’s coat burning. “And then, after all that, I struck my head against his door. Struck my head against the door of the Curious Urchin.” She sighed. Francis had told her that in all his years, he’d never seen a woman in such a state. Like she’d been swallowed by a whale and spit back out. She closed her eyes, could see her younger self staring back at her, summertime clothes in November, thin skin blue, scrapes on her feet and legs, patches of broken blood vessels near her neck, shoulders. Filthy fox bites, her mother would have called them, and the mere thought of those words made her want to vomit. “I was nothing more than a streal. Francis said the smell of liquor was so strong, he moved his candle to a higher table.”
“He was not my uncle at all,” Wilda whispered in Lewis’s perfect ear. “That was my first lie to you. He was a stranger.” She paused. “A bedraggled saint. Hauled me in off the street for no reason at all. Not a single question.
“He offered me a room and a job. Asked for nothing in return except that I don’t leave him alone in the evenings. An easy request, keeping away from darkness.” She put the back of her hand to her mouth. “I didn’t own a thing. Not a thing. It is a debt that almost strangles me.”
Wilda shifted backwards, pulled the blanket off of Lewis, pushed it underneath his head. “Do you hear me?” she whispered. He opened and closed his mouth several times, desert tongue smacking the roof. “Do you hear me?”
Watching his face closely, Wilda looked for some sign that her words had been absorbed. But his eyelids did not flutter, and there was only a playful dreamy smile at the corner of his lips. She kissed the tip of her finger, touched it to the end of his nose.
Both palms on the coffee table, Wilda stood, waddled to their bedroom. Closed the door behind her. The air was icy, as though a wall was open to the outside. She waited there, in the darkness, for a long time. Listening to sounds that had grown no more familiar even though she’d been living there for more than a year. And now, she could identify something else, something new, mixed in among the creaking frame, few flapping shingles on the roof. She heard a whirring, her own voice reverberating her humiliation. Murky echoes that didn’t lose any momentum no matter how often they pinged off the walls, bore through her head. A mistake letting her secrets out into this open space. She recognized that now. Unloading her wretchedness inside a perfectly good home.
She stayed in the blackness minutes longer. When her child kicked, she looked down, rubbed her stomach, whispered, “I don’t know what you were thinking. Choosing me.” Then she reached up her arm, swung it, caught the crocheted string hanging from the light fixture, and yanked.
12
CONSTABLE LEWIS TRENCH could not turn a blind eye. Could not look away when he saw the young Stick boy taking a sharp turn, cut off the road and down onto a path that led towards Grayley River. Duane Stick’s behavior looked suspicious, glancing about, then darting away like a deer that suddenly realized it was out in the open. But it was the fishing rod draped over his shoulder, silver tip glinting in the sunlight, that made Lewis turn on his heel and follow.
Lewis moved slowly through the woods, path soft and slippery, walking toe to heel, toe to heel. The trail that led to the river was narrow, and he shifted his body to avoid sappy spruce branches dirtying his jacket. Taking a deep breath of crisp autumn air, he could smell the forest floor, leaves and pinecones and needles breaking down into soil. There was the faintest scent of wood burning, acrid, but it made him think of homes and fireplaces and cords of cut wood, and he paused for a moment to take another deep breath, and recognize his good fortune. One day, he would bring his son here, into these woods, to this river, show him how to land a big one. But only when the time was right, when the salmon were in season.
Wood burning replaced by the smell of cigarettes, human exhaust, and Lewis got moving again. Faster now as the rumble of the river was growing in intensity, and his steps would not be heard. As he came around the final turn, he saw the black water, fifty, sixty feet across, coursing happily over rounded stones, pockets of absolute calm tucked behind larger rocks, eddies twisting into eddies behind smaller ones. Lewis stayed just beyond the tree line, in the shadow of a row of fir trees, and he watched Duane.
Skinny, jeans stuck into black lace-up boots, oversized sweater
with a too-big neck falling off his shoulders. Lewis knew the Stick boy, knew the family. Father was a drunkard, a gambler, would sell the seat off the toilet if he thought he’d make a dollar off it. The lot of them lived about a mile into the woods, at the end of a pot-holed road, parts of the clapboard on the ramshackle house rotted away, tattered tarpaper exposed. When Lewis had last carted Mr. Stick home, he recalled thinking that the family was in for a cold winter. Nothing much to keep the heat in.
Duane was there that early evening, head stuck underneath the hood of a rusted heap of junk, wheels gone, chassis sunk into muck. He never so much as hauled his head out when Mr. Stick tumbled from Lewis’s car, fell sideways into the house, nearly squishing one of the half dozen children. Duane was the oldest son, and unlike his father never caused a scrap of trouble. Until now. Lewis watched the boy settle in beside the river, tie a leader onto his rod, then bring it to his mouth, sever the line with his front teeth. And as he tracked the boy’s every movement, he wondered if Duane Stick, living the harsh life he was, had ever experienced joy.
That question was soon answered. Yes.
Lewis crouched down, sat on his heels, eyed Duane for several more minutes as the boy fished. Rod in his hand, Duane arched his arm behind his head, let his line whip back, snap the air, then sail forward, kiss the water. With each cast, Duane quickly peered over his shoulder, then tugged his line between thumb and forefinger, lifted the tip of his rod again, line released. Perfect casts, line floating through the air in wide curves, stroking the surface. Over and over, patiently, edging closer to bank, then up a short distance, then back down. Finally, snag, and Duane jumped a little, let the dangling cigarette tumble from his grinning mouth. Brrzzzz from the reel, fish fighting, Duane bent his knees, leaned backwards, tip up, reeling, relaxing, reeling, relaxing. In shallow water up over his boots, Duane guided the fish towards him, grabbed the line, lifted the salmon up and out of the water, caught it underneath its silky belly. Back on shore, Lewis could see the boy’s open-mouthed smile, could hear him saying, “Well, I’ll be. I’ll be.” Laid the fish on the rocks next to his rod. Lit another cigarette, proud manly drags. “Good supper tonight.”
“Just what do you think you’re up to, young man?” Lewis stepped out from behind the fir trees, put his hand to his brow to block the brightness. The sun’s attempt to support Duane.
Stammering, Duane stared down at the fish, up into Lewis’s eyes.
“Throwing in my line, is all. Practicing.”
“With what?”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Nothing idn’t what I sees.”
“A bomber.”
“A bomber?”
“Well, close.” Shade of dignity. “Made it myself with a length of Mother’s yarn.”
“Aiming to catch something, I reckons.”
“No, sir. No. Nothing.”
“Snag something, then?”
“I means, yes, sir. I was.”
“I was what?”
One boot lifting, mud and gravel sucking at the sole. “Aiming to catch something.”
Duane had the fish in his hands now, and Lewis couldn’t recall the moment when the boy had bent to retrieve it. Grip on the tail secure, the other open hand supporting the throat, and the fish opened and closed its ancient jaw, stared out from its ancient eye. Witnessing this jig between man and almost man.
“Can I say something, sir?” Duane turned his head sharply, wiped his reddened nose on the upper sleeve of his sweater. “Can I say something?”
“Don’t dig yourself no deeper than you already is.”
“My mother,” he stuttered. Words like the river, churning over rocks. “The youngsters. There hasn’t been much these past six or seven days. Father’s gone off, took the jar that mother had. She’s too proud to come out and ask for something. And ’tis just the one, sir. Just the one. I swears.”
“What’s your name?” he asked, even though he knew it.
“Duane. Duane Stick, sir.”
“And, Mr. Stick, do you know that poaching is illegal? Against the laws we got here?”
“No, sir. I means, yes, sir.”
Lewis continued his standard spiel. “Do you know that the fines is hefty? And if you can’t pay your fines, they can toss you in jail for a good long time? A good long time.”
“No, sir. ’Tis one fish, sir. Just to have a dinner. Coupla meals. With Father gone, and all.”
“Don’t matter if ’tis one or one hundred. All the same in the eyes of the law.”
“I don’t got no money for a fine, sir, honest, sir, and I don’t know what Mother’d do if I was gone off. I won’t do it no more. I promises I won’t.”
“That’s right, you won’t.”
Silence for a moment, and they stared at each other, Duane still lifting and dropping his feet, likely icy in soaked boots. He began to retreat, fish’s tail still snug in his fist.
Lewis rubbed his face, pressed his temples with thumb and middle finger. He’d caught so many men poaching, mostly young, good stories tumbling from their lips, and never once did he waver. This was the first time he wished himself back behind those fir trees. Wished he could just close his eyes, let the boy walk away with his dinner. But he pushed out the words. “I can’t let you keep it.”
“What?”
“I can’t, Duane.”
“But. But.”
“You have to put it back.”
“Mouth is tore, sir. Tore on my fly.”
Lewis clenched his jaw, scratched his forehead with hard nails. Rules were rules were rules, and Lewis had made an oath to follow them. He had no choice, and his insides ached, something akin to hunger pain, but not. Lewis stood still as Duane did as he was told, squatted near the edge of the river, moved the fish back and forth in the flowing water. But the fish never shook free from Duane’s grasp, never spread its gills or flicked its tail, splashing freezing water up over his wrist. Duane twisted his neck, looked up at Lewis. Lewis whispered, “Christ,” closed his eyes, nodded once. And Duane opened his hand, waited as the fat salmon rolled onto its side and began its lazy descent downstream. Then Duane crept backwards, not watching his step. Boot came down on the thinner part of his rod, cracked it. And he left the remains on the banks of Grayley River, bolted through the woods, disappearing into shadows.
Lewis never followed the path of the boy, just stood there with his frowning face towards the glittering water, squinted eyes following the dead fish. Tumbling over rocks, its brilliant belly flashing, flashing, until the river deepened, and the fish was swallowed by the thirsty current.
13
IN A GROCERY store aisle containing biscuits and canned vegetables, a pair of rickety carts clanged together. Two women, both with evenly rounded bellies, feet swollen inside unzipped winter boots, collided with some force. But only one woman glanced up with flushed cheeks, hand to mouth in apologetic gesture.
Mrs. Fagan, the older of the two, did not lift her face. Of course she didn’t. Had no desire to display her forehead covered with fine wrinkles, cheeks and mouth white, emotionless. She adjusted her cart, continued to scan the shelves, searching for gingersnaps. Pretended the harsh sound of metal scraping against metal had never happened.
She was not born like that, dour and flat and mostly soundless. Void of civility. Once, in a time of her life she could barely stand to remember, she and her sister had liked to dance, could do the foxtrot together, swing. Even tap a little. Holding hands, swaying on the old wooden floors of the Legion, edges of their full skirts brushing, both aware how many eyes, both men’s and women’s, were fixed to their trim whirling calves. That was when she’d been a Glass. Married to Wesley, tall and skinny with a mop of bright hair. Smiled incessantly. Even in his sleep. Sometimes she imagined him smiling at the sculpins while he was drowned.
Shortly after he died, her sister met a man of some affluence, and she moved to Cape Breton, into a brick mansion with a peaked roof and a sunroom. Perennial garden full of phlox and
dianthus. And Mrs. Glass was alone then, with young Garrett, and not two pennies to rub together. She soon discovered that her perfect smiling husband owed every cent they had saved. Not even enough left for a few cups of flour. Requests for loans from her sister were eventually met with silence. Unanswered letters. Unreturned calls. Miss Piddle, the landlady, threatened to kick mother and son out as soon as the first leaf turned green. “I don’t rent for free,” she snipped. Mrs. Glass would have to send the boy away, go to the city, find work. A plan was beginning to form, until she received a half nod from Eli Fagan. The man from Knife’s Point, who sat in the smoky corner of the Legion, never danced, but decided to take a wife to cook and clean, alleviate the frequent throb that tormented his dreams. She knew about Eli Fagan, but her options were limited—who was going to take on a woman with a young son? A young son who had gone a mite queer in the head since the day he was plucked from the sea. And as her mother always said, “The devil ye knows is always finer than the devil ye don’t.” Few words from the reverend, and she transformed from a Glass to a Fagan. Wanted the boy to switch too, but Eli wouldn’t hear of it, and the child remained a Glass.
But that business was neither here nor there. No point to wallow when it made no difference to her current state. A husband who was like a kettle perched over an uncertain flame. A son who spent most of his days lost inside his head. A five-year-old daughter who already knew how to use her doe eyes and snarl of brown hair to get just what she wanted. And now, a third child on the way. Another girl, Mrs. Fagan suspected. Girls made her sick for the entire nine months, wide band around her neck, driest of heaves, and all she could keep in her gullet was package after package of Purity gingersnaps soaked to a golden mush in bowls of warm milk.
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