Father McIntyre stepped gingerly over the smashed fruit. An older boy with rolled-up sleeves stood midway up a ladder, steadying his balance as he pruned the limbs with shears. A smaller boy sat at the base, inspecting a rotten apple for ants.
“Dylan!” the priest called out. “Have you seen James?”
The boy on the ladder turned, rested the shears on his shoulder. “In the barn. Last time I seen ’im.”
“He’s doin’ his chores!” the bug inspector chimed helpfully.
“You finish yours?” Father McIntyre asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good boy.”
He moved evenly over pebbles bleached white and carried from the sea, his black frock starkly bold above them as he made his way to the barn in the lower paddock. There Father McIntyre quietly leaned against the old, warm wood and watched the boy push the shreds of hay into the back of the stall. The broom, still too long for the child, slipped in his hands as he cleared the ground around the horse’s hooves.
James was growing up—still a child, but less and less one every day. Father McIntyre stepped into the barn, the heat trapped oppressively within the rotten wood. James rubbed his forehead against his sleeve, then gently petted the mare’s nose. The horse reared, stepped away violently.
Father McIntyre grabbed the harness. “Whoa! What’s gotten into her?”
James looked up in surprise. “Don’t know. She’s not herself.”
“Did you check the stall for snakes? Lost that little nanny goat to one last week.”
James’s eyes lit up. He exchanged the broom for the pitchfork and shoveled through the high pile of hay. A long, brown snake erupted from the disturbed mound and slithered through his legs. The horse panicked, batted her front hooves into the air.
“I’ve got him cornered!” James shouted.
Father McIntyre shivered. “Don’t get near that snake, James! Just finish him quickly!”
The boy’s face opened with pure bewilderment. “I can’t hurt him, Father.” With one quick scoop he caught the snake between the pitchfork prongs, carried the wriggling creature to the door and flung him to the grass.
“For Pete’s sake, James!” Father McIntyre held one hand to his chest. “Don’t ever do that again. The world can live with one less snake, you know.”
James knit his brows deeply. Bits of grass and seed stuck to the sweat on his forearms and crown. Father McIntyre shook his head, laughed at the boy’s weighty seriousness and patted his hair, sending puffs of hay into the air. “Fearless. Always have been.”
James rubbed the horse’s nose softly and she calmed. He began work with the pitchfork again, pushing the disrupted hay back into place.
Father McIntyre stopped him. “Come outside and sit with me for a bit.”
“What about my chores?”
“They can wait.”
Father McIntyre and James left the strong smell of animals and hay behind and sat outside against a sun-soaked boulder. Father McIntyre handed him a brown package. “Happy birthday.”
The boy held the gift in his hand. “We’re not supposed to get presents.”
The Father chuckled. “There are some exceptions. Go on, James. Open it.”
Reluctantly, the boy untied the twine and pulled off the paper. His face did not change as he stared at the thick leather Bible.
“It’s a new book, not a used one from the church,” Father McIntyre explained. “Look, I know you wouldn’t have picked this for yourself, but”—he struggled for the right words—“maybe you’ll look to it for answers. Maybe not now, but someday.”
James looked at the book in his hands. “Thank you, Father.”
Father McIntyre couldn’t decide if he wanted to shake or hug the boy. He settled on pinching his chin. “Why do you always look so serious, my son?” James didn’t answer, nor did the Father expect him to.
Father McIntyre followed the stone trail with his eyes, his crow’s-feet wrinkling in memory. “I taught you to walk on this path.” He pointed near the end of the barn. “That smooth spot there. As soon as your legs were strong enough, we came down here every day and practiced. You would grip my index fingers with your whole fist, hold on so tight that my fingers turned white.” He looked at his fingers, still seeing it. “You were so determined to walk. No sooner were you crawling than you were trying to stay upright on wobbly legs.”
The sun glowed warmly and etched the boy’s amber crown in gold. “I remember when they put you in my arms, not more than a week old. You turned bright red and screamed so hard I thought you’d burst.” He rubbed his hand through his hair, his eyes wide with the memory. “I was so scared. My hands trembled till I thought I’d drop you. Hadn’t been here more than a month myself.” He smiled softly at James. “You and I grew up here together, my son. Held each other up along that path.”
He watched James’s profile and wondered at the thoughts the boy kept hidden. He was a fine boy. A fine, wonderful boy and he loved him like a father would a son—not an ordained father but a natural one.
James had a good life at the orphanage; this he was sure. He was fed, educated, taught to speak properly, without the slang used by other children. He was never bullied, a favorite of the nuns. But the boy had no friends and showed little interest in making them, more at peace with the animals or alone. A hollowness had lived in James since birth, and in nine years Father McIntyre still hadn’t a clue how to fill it.
He pulled James to his feet, gave him a wink. “Go on. It’s your birthday. Chores can wait until tomorrow.” He knew where the boy would go. “James!” he called out to the figure already speeding toward the sea. “Remember, not too close to the cliffs!”
CHAPTER 9
James leaned against the trunk of the weeping peppermint tree, the shade wispy and uneven. His chin pressed on one bent knee while the other leg lay straight. His toe peeked from the shoe’s crack like a worm fresh from the ground. He pulled the toe in and the crack closed. A ball broke clumsily through the branches, nearly landing on his head.
“Over ’ere!” a boy hollered from the field. “Send it back!”
James chucked the ball into the sky.
“Yeh want t’play, James?”
“Naw.” James resettled under the tree, moved his attention back to his hide-and-seek toe. He traced shapes in the soft brown dirt with a crooked stick. The drone of children hummed all around, melting like the drum of insects.
Meghan Mahoney’s shadow fell across his foot as she sneaked past, snickering with two other girls. “There she is!”
James sighed and poked harder at the ground, wishing their voices were far enough to merge with the rest of the insects.
“Leonora! Hey, Leonora, whot yeh doin’?” Meghan’s voice, sweet as rancid butter, surrounded the little girl hidden in the shade.
“Oh! I forgot. She don’t know how t’talk. Poor thing! Would yeh like a lesson? I’m a very good teacher.” The girls giggled. “Repeat after me: ‘I’m a dumb, ugly girl.’ Say it wiv me: ‘I’m a dumb, ugly girl.’ ”
James kept his chin tucked to his knee and did not look, didn’t need to. He could see Meghan’s freckled face clearly enough behind the voice as she tortured the new girl. He dug hard into the dirt until the stick cracked in his fingers.
“S’not talkin’, eh? How ’bout singin’? Got a good song. Made it just for yeh.
“Leonora, Leonora,
under the sky,
’er parents left ’er to die,
then laughed like the kookaburra!”
The words sickened James’s insides like sour milk. He shot daggers at the girls, caught a glimpse of Leonora’s eyes as they flickered to his. There were no tears, no anger—only softness. A swift heat ignited his nerves. James chewed his bottom lip, his limbs tight. He could stop it. But it would be back tomorrow and the day after. It would be worse because they loved a fight. Their eyes sparkled for it. They’d pick harder. He closed his eyes, focused on the rustle of willowy leaves until
the laughter died and Meghan and her crew bustled away.
He sat idly now, his toe tucked back into its hole, his stick broken in the dirt. The silent girl in the shadows sat and settled her chin upon her small fist. And James hated this place—the only home he had ever known—and he wanted nothing more than to leave it. He couldn’t sit any longer and there weren’t enough sticks in the world to break. Springing from his seat, he ran from the field, ran over the path that swung around the church, ran so hard his head bent forward and his legs blurred through the wildflowers and boulders that traced the way to the cliffs.
The smell of the sea smacked as he crested the hill and stood at the very edge. He settled atop a patch of brittle grass, sharpened to points and entrenched in sand. His legs hung over the sheer mountain ledge, his toes dangling hundreds of feet above the swirling waves. James leaned back and dug his elbows into the ground, closed his eyes and raised his chin to the clouds. The orphanage disappeared. The roar of water drowned the voices, the taunts; the briny scent of fish and sea flushed away the smell of sweat and dirt and mildew. The callousness, the cruelty of the orphanage lingered for a moment before the currents tore and diffused it.
The sea stilled him. The bounce of water far below hypnotized and quieted his mind. The steeple bell chimed two hollow rings and a weakness tugged his insides. He did not belong at this place. He knew this before he was old enough to know it. This was not meant to be his life and yet it was his life and he didn’t understand and it made him want to crack sticks and throw rocks into the sea until his shoulder hurt.
From his waistband, James pulled out the Bible Father McIntyre had given him. The Father said it would give him answers, and one came, but certainly not one the priest would approve. James opened the cover and rubbed his hand over the tiny printed words, the paper thin and opaque. Slowly, he pinched the corner of the paper and tore it straight down its seam. He grabbed more pages, ripping evenly so they hardly frayed. The last few pages fell out on their own and James rubbed his finger over the naked seam, bare but for a few red strings. The limp cover collapsed into the back, the substance gone.
James gathered the ripped pages, held them for a moment, the edges flapping in the warm breeze before being released over the cliffs where they danced upon the wind, waved like milky hands and glided down to the frothy ocean. Beside him, a cypress tree with worn and knobby roots hung to the edge of the cliff and James picked through a pyramid of stones at its base until he found the buried black book. In the sunlight, the gold-embossed lettering glowed white and his heart raced just as it had the first time he found it in Father McIntyre’s library. The name “O’Connell” shone brilliant. His name.
The Father had hidden the book from him, but the cyclone had returned it, the wind leaving the book fanned and exposed in the rubble until he’d snatched it.
Now James blew away the bits of dirt that filled the veining leather creases. He placed the book into the shell of the Bible and pressed hard. Not a perfect fit but good enough not to be questioned. Her words were safe now, protected in God’s cover. He tucked his mother’s diary safely under his shirt.
CHAPTER 10
Seventy-five miles north of Geraldton, near Kalbarri, the orphanage hovered above jagged cliffs that gave no hint of human inhabitation save the serpentine dirt road roughed out by convicts more than a decade before. Green fingers of hopbush worked daily to reclaim the road, their roots creeping over wagon ruts and lines sluiced by years of winter rain; immovable boulders blocked every turn. But few needed to pass along this route. The people of the north, the wild country, stayed in the north; the people of the south, the sun country, stayed in the south.
So this road met the Bishop’s experimental petrol-fueled car with great amusement. Pointed rocks poked at the thin rubber tires and bounced the iron frame precariously over hidden roots and ruts. The whole of the orphanage watched the steel and rubber creature. Not even age precluded a gaping mouth as the battered car pulled up to the level lot of the church amid a cloud of dust and exhaust. Through the blanket of smoke, a man floundered with a gearshift, each jolt bringing loud screeches from the engine and more smoke farting from the tailpipe until he pulled something hard and the engine closed down with a whine. The passenger’s door opened and an arm clothed in black smacked away the fumes.
Father McIntyre reached a hand into the smoke. “Welcome, Your Grace.”
The Bishop stepped from the car, leaned against the car looking ill, then chuckled. “That journey is not for the faint of heart.” He beat at his cope. Sprays of dust clouded and stuck to his red, sweaty face. Putting his palms to the small of his back, he arched his spine in a long, tight stretch, his stomach bulging. Another man fumbled with bags tied to the trunk platform and then, with hands draped with vestments, joined the Bishop’s side.
Father McIntyre’s lips parted. Recognition reached his body first and his face drained.
“My new assistant, Deacon Johnson,” introduced the Bishop.
“Hello, Father McIntyre.” The man addressed the priest calmly, but his eyes were questioning and apprehensive. “It’s good to see you again.”
The Bishop looked up in surprise. “You know one another?”
The Deacon did not take his eyes off Father McIntyre and answered gently, “We were at the seminary together in New South Wales. I was his tutor for many years.”
Father McIntyre tried to remind himself that the man had once been a friend and he let that memory obscure the others until the blood returned to his face and his chest opened again. “Deacon Johnson,” he greeted formally. “It’s been a long time.”
“Good we started here,” noted the Bishop. “Always helps to see a familiar face.”
“We’re not your only stop?”
“Hardly!” the Bishop huffed. “We’ve almost a dozen other missions to visit.” He slapped a hand to the Father’s shoulder. “You’re not the only one in need of money, you know. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to clean up and have a rest.” The Bishop walked past the children, did not greet them with expression or voice. “Besides, I’m sure you and Deacon Johnson have a lot of catching up to do.”
Father McIntyre watched the retreating figure, fully conscious of the Deacon’s weighted gaze against his profile. He clasped his hands behind his back, breathed the briny sea into his nostrils before speaking. “It was a long time ago, Robert. There’s no need to speak of it.”
The Deacon’s round cheeks twitched. “I know, but I feel I should—”
He stopped the man’s sentence with one piercing look. “It was a long time ago.”
CHAPTER 11
On this day, the waves did not crash but lapped and licked the stones of the cliffs. The pages in the book open at James’s knees hardly rustled in the calm. He read little of her diary, absorbing each word in both style and meaning to create some picture of his mother. At the end of each page, he hesitated to turn to the next, for each page opened a window to his past, both the good and bad of it. He was in no rush to read the diary. He was an orphan. He knew how it ended.
James closed the book and placed it under bent knees, embracing them with his arms as he followed the sounds of the tide. Then a movement shadowed a boulder. A stick cracked. His skin iced. He waited, became as still as the rocks. Pebbles crunched to his right and he sprang upright. “Who’s there?” he hollered. James tucked the book into his waistband and bent slowly for a rock, raised it into the air, readied it. “Who’s back there?”
A figure emerged from behind the thorny arms of a Murchison rose. James lowered the rock and dropped it from his fingers. “You shouldn’t be up here,” he warned.
Leonora stepped from behind the prickly wires. Her shoulders rose and settled with nervous breathing and her eyes circled with worry. “You shouldn’t be up here,” he repeated. “The cliffs aren’t safe.” James stepped forward and she retreated with as many steps.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He walked quickly, but she moved quicker and th
e full sea and its distance rose up behind her. “Stop!” he shouted, but she did not understand and her feet backed into the space where the grass could no longer grow and the sand met the crumbles of the cliff edge. James did not see or think but bolted forward and grabbed her arm just as her ankle gave in against a loose rock that rolled to the sea. He pulled her roughly from the edge and did not let go until she squirmed her whitened wrist from his grip.
Adrenaline pumped hard and he didn’t know quite what had happened except that she was there and did not fall over the edge and he couldn’t quite believe it. They stared hard at each other, their chests heaving. Leonora’s eyes flickered to the rosebush.
“What is it?” he asked. “What’s over there?” She didn’t answer, watched his every move as he crawled under the prickly canopy. She grabbed his arm and made him stop, then pointed to the ground. There, near his next step, was a cluster of sticks, a mound of petals and leaves. In the center, a small yellow and gray bird, her wing jutting out awkwardly, blinked with slow, pale lids.
Leonora still held his arm, squeezed it vaguely, a great begging holding her face. He knelt against the sandy base and pushed the stems away, holding them carefully between the thorns. “I won’t hurt her,” he whispered.
James caressed the bird’s lead-colored head. “She’s a western yellow robin. Her wing’s broken, though.
“Wait here.” James shuffled from the brambles and returned a moment later, his fingers soiled and holding a wriggling earthworm. He placed it on the ground. The bird tilted her head one way and then the other, pecked, held the worm longways in her beak and then in three choking jerks ate it.
Leonora turned to James and her eyes were bright with gratitude. She smiled cautiously. James smiled back. He never smiled and he didn’t understand.
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