“You’ll be next, young martle, if you goes puttin’ on airs around here,” Nan threatened, pointing the dripping wet rag at me as I inched my way after Josie. “She might be a tramp, but she’s better than them that made her so, for it’s a damn sight easier to clean the rot off a crotch than the shame off a dirtied soul. Think about that before you starts hangin’ your head before the likes of Margaret Eveleigh.” She took a threatening step my way, and without losing a precious second I tore off to my room and slammed the door.
The next morning I got up, but Nan didn’t. Inching open her room door, I peered inside and turned to stone. She was lying with the back of her head on her pillow, her eyes rolled back in her head, and her mouth dropped open like she was about to sing out to one of us when God took her. I slumped against the wall and crouched down to the floor. I couldn’t see her face from here, only the bottoms of her feet sticking out from beneath the blanket—greyish white, the creases caked white with dried dead skin, and her toenails, thick and yellowed, curling back over the pads of her toes. Josie come thumping down the hall, and catching sight of Nan’s face through the doorway, she poked her head inside for a closer look. Then she walked over to the bed. Staring hard at Nan’s face, she reached out and slapped her.
“You wake up!” She slapped, again. “Wake up!”
“She’s dead!” I said weakly, the words sounding as though they were coming from someone else’s mouth.
“Who’s dead? She’s not dead. Wake up!”
Leaping to my feet, I grabbed hold of her arm as she went to hit Nan again.
“She’s dead!” I half yelled. “See her eyes? You don’t sleep with your eyes open.”
She stared at Nan’s eyes, then pushed me back and poked at them with her fingers.
“Stop it!” I shrieked.
“You stop it! You stop it! What’d you do?”
“I didn’t do nothin’!”
“You did! Yes you did! Stop it! Stop it!” She fought against me as I tried to hold onto her hands. Then she drew back and struck me a stunning blow to the face. When my head cleared, she was gone. I ran to the door, then stopped and dropped onto the stoop. There would be no catching her on this day. And what would I be wanting her for anyway?
I don’t know how long I sat there. Seagulls cried. The wind gusted. But I only saw dead! Nan, dead! The gully, dead! Nan, dead! The first snow fluttered around my feet like ripped lace. And still I sat, thinking nothing, feeling nothing. Doctor Hodgins pulled up by the side of the road in his car with Josie sitting besides him. She slammed out of the car and tore down over the bank and inside the house. Doctor Hodgins came hurrying behind her, the wind tugging his tufts of hair, and Josie’s frenzy quickening his step. He paused besides me, my frozen state mirroring that of Nan’s, and laying a hand gently on my head, he hastened inside at the sound of Josie slapping Nan.
“You can’t wake her, Josie,” I heard him say. There was a shuffling as he tried to hold her back. Then she was barking and shrieking, followed by a thump as he must’ve got her up against a wall. Then she was charging out through the door, her hand jamming my head against the side of the door jamb as she climbed past me and ran down the gully. She didn’t go far, just to the other side. Then she squatted down and stared back at me as I stayed sitting on the stoop.
Slowly, her body began to rock—back and forth, back and forth—and a hard moaning started coming from her. Her hair slipped further and further forward as she rocked, till her face was screened by a curtain of red. Still she rocked. It felt like every inch of her soul was thrown into that moaning and rocking, and as I watched, I felt my head nodding too. And then the snow was swirling around her, and the rocks, and the brook, till it seemed like the whole gully was rocking and moaning alongside of her and alongside of me. Tears swelled in my eyes and I felt Doctor Hodgins sit down besides me as great wrenching sobs heaved out of my chest. And if it weren’t for his hands holding onto my shoulders, I believe I would’ve sobbed my soul into heaven that day, leaving behind a sack of skin and bones as dry as the skin coating Nan’s feet.
CHAPTER SIX
MRS. ROPSON’S DUTY
DOCTOR HODGINS LAID NAN OUT in the church to keep Josie from slapping at her face. He wanted to take us into his home, but his wife, sick with tuberculosis for all these years, was worsening. So he had Aunt Drucie come stay with us until after the funeral. What with her never having youngsters, and her husband sinking through a bog hole and drowning ten years ago, she had no one to stay home for. Plus, she was the closest to us, her house being halfway between the gully and Haire’s Hollow. I didn’t mind her coming too much. She’d had the sleeping sickness for some years now and spent most of her time napping on the daybed, or slouched back in Nan’s rocker, dozing. Josie wasn’t home long enough to notice who was staying with us. Since the day of Nan’s passing she hardly spoke to me, except to yell and then run off down the gully. On the day of the burial, Doctor Hodgins went looking for her. I sat at the table, wearing my new red shift that Nan had brought from May Eveleigh’s store and had hid away in her room for me for Christmas. Aunt Drucie sat across from me, her green veiled hat pinned a little crookedly on her head, and her eyes and nose red from bawling.
“I don’t know what’s goin’ to happen to ye, Kit,” she sniffled. “You and your poor mother. The reverend’s all for sendin’ you off to the orphanage in St. John’s, but Doc Hodgins won’t stand for it and is figurin’ on askin’ me to come servin’ for you. You knows I’d do it; she was my best friend, Lizzy was.” Aunt Drucie broke down sobbing again, wiping her nose with a scrap of white, wrinkled cotton she had hemmed around for a handkerchief. “And too, we’re family, no different than if I raised ye, meself.” Blowing her nose, she reached across the table and patted my hand. “Would you want that, Kit—Aunt Drucie to come look after ye?”
I nodded, as I did to everything asked of me the past days, my heart too laden to do much of anything else.
Aunt Drucie paused in her tears, her eyes beseeching mine as she mouthed a silent sigh for the gift of charity I had just bestowed upon her, no different than if Nan herself had been sitting alongside of me, handing me to her.
“I’ll do me best for ye, Kit, I pray to God, I’ll do me best,” she quavered, sitting back in her chair and dabbing at her eyes. “How old be you, now? Twelve? Soon thirteen? Sure, another year and you won’t be needin’ nobody to care for you; wouldn’t young Suze Gale only thirteen when she was pregnant and married?”
I nodded and Aunt Drucie leaned forward, dropping her voice to a fierce whisper.
“And it’s a good thing for the reverend and the higher-ups that I’ll be takin’ care of ye, ’cuz I allows Lizzy would come back and haunt the bejesus out of every livin’ soul in Haire’s Hollow if they was to have their way and send you to an orphanage somewhere—after all they put her through when you was born. Although ’tis a sin Doctor Hodgins’s wife’s so sick,” she added tearily. “’Cuz for sure he would’ve took you and your poor mother in. My, I remembers when all the talk was goin’ on about his wife wantin’ a baby, and was wantin’ to adopt you, but he wouldn’t let her. They says it’s been eatin’ at him ever since. They says that’s when she started gettin’ a bit low minded, after Doctor Hodgins put a stop to her adoptin’ you. Course now, Lizzy had a say about that, too. She always said the doc’s wife looked so sickly and blue with the cold that if she had a youngster, they’d have to wrap hot-water bottles around her tits to warm up a bit of milk.”
A knock sounded and Aunt Drucie half stood as Old Joe inched open the door and stood inside, his curly grey hair wetted neatly back off his forehead, and his cap in his hand.
“Oh, ’tis you, Joe,” Aunt Drucie said, her voice becoming all teary again. “Come on in then, and take a seat,” she offered, sitting back down and pulling out a chair alongside of her.
“I’ll be goin’, agin,” Old Joe mumbled, shifting uncomfortably as he stood besides me. “I-I just wanted to see Kit for a bit b
efore … before … ” His voice broke and he fumbled around in the pocket of his pressed Sunday pants and brought out the orange starfish he had offered me the day of Rube Gale’s funeral. “I dried it for you, like I said,” he whispered, dropping to one knee and holding it before me. “Might be I brung it too late … but, there’ll be other wishes, Kittens … ”
His voice choked off and I looked into his seeping, wind-wrought eyes.
“You just remember the verse,” he whispered hoarsely. “Starfish, star bright. Then you closes your eyes and thinks the rest.”
He placed the fish onto my outstretched palm and wrapped his hands around mine.
“You nail it to your room door,” he urged gently, rising to his feet. “Your very own star. And if it don’t bring you what you wishes for, you come to Old Joe, and he’ll get it for you.”
Then he was backing out the door and Aunt Drucie was weeping brokenheartedly.
“Poor J-Joe,” she sobbed, “what’s he goin’ to do now without his ole card partner. My, they were a p-pair, they were.”
The door opened again, and this time Doctor Hodgins walked in, smoothing back his tufts of hair, with Josie besides him.
“My oh m-my, she looks froze to death,” Aunt Drucie moaned as Josie, scowling at me, kicked the mud and snow off her boots, and stomped down the hall to her room.
“Why don’t you go help her get dressed,” Doctor Hodgins said to Aunt Drucie.
Aunt Drucie got up, still dabbing at her eyes, and followed after Josie. Surprisingly, Josie let her into her room without any fuss. Doctor Hodgins sat down besides me, the cool fall air wafting from his clothes, like mint against my face. He fingered the starfish I held in my lap, then took it and laid it on the table. Taking hold of my hand, he held it in his and studied my palm.
“I can’t take your pain away this time,” he said finally, his voice gruff with gentleness. “I expect no one can, but the grace of God. Do you believe in God, Kit?”
I nodded, my mouth as empty of words as my eyes were of tears.
“Do you believe your grandmother is in a nice place?” he asked softly.
I nodded again.
“She won’t ever leave you completely, Kit. There’ll always be a part of her right here with you. Believe that.” He paused, then, “I talked to Josie about angels. I don’t think Lizzy was big on angels.”
“She—didn’t like feathers.”
“Apparently. So, I talked to her about spirits instead, and how they are soft and warm, and not easily seen, and how Lizzy is a spirit now, and even though we can’t see her, she’s listening and watching us all the time, and lying down with us at night to help keep us warm while we sleep.” He tightened his grip on my hand. “I don’t know how much of it she understood. Perhaps you might want to reassure her of that sometimes.”
I nodded.
“Kit, you can come live with Elsie and me.”
“I want to stay here,” I said, my eyes widening in alarm.
“Shh, you don’t have to leave if you don’t want to. I’m asking Drucie if she’ll oversee things, here—cook, clean. Sleep over, if that’s what you want. She’ll be good company for you, help with things.” He paused, then, “I understand how Josie wouldn’t take well to moving. But, it’s different with you, Kit. You’re growing up fast, and there’s things you’ll need. I know Elsie’s not that well, but you might be good for each other … ”
“I won’t leave,” I said, my voice rising.
He smiled and little crinkles ran off from the corners of his eyes like ripples on a quiet pond.
“Don’t worry, Kittens. I promised Lizzy a long time ago that I would see to you, and that you would never have to leave your home. And you won’t. You have my word.”
Something of my doubts must’ve been written in my eyes, for he tightened his grip on my hand again, and added gruffly, “You’re going to be fine. Anything you need, I’ll see to it that you get. You just come to me. Will you promise me that?”
I nodded and he stroked the back of my hand with the pad of his thumb, the same as Nan when she was stroking the down off a turr’s breast—all careful and tender like, so’s to not rip the skin and sap the oil from its meat.
“Perhaps you should go see how Josie’s making out with Drucie,” he said, laying my hand back on my lap and giving it a little pat. “Lizzy won’t like it if I’m late getting her girls to her funeral.”
I walked down the hall to Josie’s room, thinking Nan wouldn’t be liking any of it if she was here, most specifically being laid out in church and with the Reverend Ropson looking over her corpse. And it was a dirty deed the reverend done her, when halfway through the service he went into his sermon on sin with such a vengeance that I could feel Nan’s toenails uncurling as she lay there, muted in her coffin. And once, when the reverend pointed his finger somewheres in Josie’s direction while calling the congregation sinners, I thought the coffin shifted. Shrinking closer to Doctor Hodgins, I half expected the lid to pop open any second and Nan along with it, pointing a finger of blasphemy at the reverend and blasting his hypocritic soul to hell.
Just what the reverend’s hypocrisies were, except trying to take me away from Nan and sending me off to an orphanage the day I was born, I didn’t know. Yet, aside from the scant few who took tea with him, everyone else in Haire’s Hollow felt the same as Nan, although they were all equally pressed to say why. For the most part, the reverend walked amongst everyone and talked their talk, and was always taking their fight to St. John’s when the fishers was getting a low cut on a quintal of fish, or the loggers being gypped on a cord of wood.
“It’s in the way he goes about it,” Old Joe said to Nan, once. “He’s worse than Lucy Gale; gives you a piece of boiled cake just so’s she can show off her new plate, then begrudges you every crumb that goes into your mouth.”
“Be the Jesus, it ain’t the cake he’s begrudging ye,” Nan had replied. “For he loves to flick his arse off to St. John’s every chance he can get. It’s havin’ to talk with ye in the first place to find out what the matter is that dirties up his pretty platter.”
And it was a dirty job he done Nan during her burial service. Fixing his eyes on Josie and me, sitting in the front pew alongside of Doctor Hodgins, he left off on his sermon on sin and went into another on the folly of foolish pride with such hissing and spite that most of the congregation hung their heads in shame for the way he was taking the final say in the bad blood between him and Nan and the bad blood that, in a way that wasn’t quite clear to anyone in Haire’s Hollow, had silently grown between him and Doctor Hodgins. And by the way Doctor Hodgins laid his hands protectively around mine and Josie’s shoulders as he stared down the reverend during his preaching, and by the way the reverend’s words lost some of their spite whenever he tripped over Doctor Hodgins’s brooding look, it became clear that the battle was far from over simply because the general lay dead in a box at the reverend’s feet.
It was the day after the funeral that they came—in much the same way Nan said they came all those years ago when they first tried to take me away from the gully. Excepting for the reverend and Jimmy Randall. They didn’t come on this day. Just May Eveleigh and Mrs. Ropson. And it wasn’t Nan who stood to greet them. It was me and Doctor Hodgins.
Nodding politely at Doctor Hodgins, May sat down straight as a ruler on the edge of the daybed and looked expectantly to the reverend’s wife who was easing herself a little uneasily into Nan’s rocker. I could tell by the way Mrs. Ropson kept looking to a spot besides the door where Doctor Hodgins was now standing that that was where the reverend must’ve stood as they faced down Nan, who must’ve been sitting on the far end of the daybed, away from May Eveleigh, where I was now sitting. After greeting them by name, Doctor Hodgins smoothed back his tufts and pleasantly asked, “Would you like a cup of tea, ladies?”
“I wouldn’t put you to the trouble, Doctor,” Mrs. Ropson said, wiping her cold, red nose with a small crumpled hankie, her voice a trifl
e too pleasing.
“No trouble at all,” Doctor Hodgins replied. “Kit?”
I rose and went to the bin, taking down the teacups.
“A little cold water in mine,” May Eveleigh said. Then she tut-tutted shockingly, “Some cold for October, Doctor. I allows we’ll never see the sun again.”
“It’s always colder out here by the gully,” Mrs. Ropson said with a little bivver. “No trees to buff the wind.”
“Some of us like a good breeze, Mrs. Ropson,” Doctor Hodgins replied merrily. “Need any help, Kit?”
I walked slowly towards Mrs. Ropson, carefully holding out the cup and saucer so’s not to flop the tea over the sides. The tip of a cold fingernail grazed my knuckle as she accepted the cup and my hand shook a little as I went back to the bin for May Eveleigh’s. Everyone served, I glanced with relief at Doctor Hodgins and sat back down, stealing a look at May Eveleigh as she copied sipping her tea as smartly as Mrs. Ropson. Aside from slurping a little too loud, she appeared to be doing it just right. Doctor Hodgins watched, too.
“It’s a good cup a tea,” May finally said, lowering her cup. “Thank you, Kit.”
“Yes, thank you,” Mrs. Ropson said, smiling up at Doctor Hodgins. “Well, well, it’s a good turn you’re doing the family, Doctor, helping out like this. The reverend’s disappointed he couldn’t come with us today, but he’s got a wedding down in Pollard’s Point and a baptism in Purpy’s Cove. And then he’s off to St. John’s. But, he feels blessed he was here to bury Lizzy.”
“I’m sure Lizzy feels blessed as well,” Doctor Hodgins replied solemnly. Mrs. Ropson gave a curt nod and tracked May Eveleigh’s eyes around the place. There wasn’t much— the room we were sitting in served as a kitchen and sitting room, with three small bedrooms leading off from a narrow hallway, and the small room at the back that served as Nan’s closet. Everything was clean—the wooden bin, criss-crossed with a thousand cuts from a thousand diced carrots and potatoes, and the wood bleached from a thousand scrubbings; a sanded plank nailed across the wall over the bin served as a shelf for the dishes; the cupboards below, hidden behind a curtain of red cotton that Nan hemmed and hung to keep out the dirt.
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