The Boy in the Burning House

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  Laverne Roncelier was wanted for questioning but they didn’t need to extradite her; she came on her own as fast as she could. And once she had checked up on Stanley in the Great War Memorial Hospital in Ladybank, she turned herself in to the police. But the blackmail letters, which Fisher had been keeping in the old clubhouse in the cave, clearly revealed that money had never been the object of the exercise. Just as Stanley had said, all she had ever wanted was justice.

  Fisher’s offer of money had not only been the final insult, but also all the proof she needed of his guilt. It didn’t go unnoticed by Jim or other folks in the Ladybank area that the amount Fisher offered Laverne Roncelier to keep her mouth shut roughly coincided with the money he had raised for the Kosovo relief campaign.

  Father Fisher had all kinds of things to say. He had a story for anyone who cared to listen, and they varied as the weather did that autumn. He claimed no responsibility for any wrong-doings. But then, other times his mind slipped a gear and he babbled whole scenes of the drama that had led up to the disappearance of Hub Hawkins. It was as if a little voice inside him was trying to break through the walls of denial behind which he had retreated so many years ago.

  One rainy November morning, he told a forensic psychiatrist that he had pushed Hub into a deep mine shaft at Tabor just to put him out of his misery. He seemed to believe he had been doing his old friend a favour. He told how he covered his tracks, leaving the car in the cedar grove, walking away in Hub’s own shoes, just as Ruth Rose had suspected. The lip balm dispenser had been his only mistake and he had covered that well enough. He was an impressive liar. A pathological liar.

  A police team following up on Fisher’s confession, discovered the bones, the earthly remains of Hub Hawkins, at the bottom of a shaft deep inside the mine. He could be laid to rest at last.

  It was a strange funeral, well attended, including every preacher from every church in Ladybank and the surrounding countryside.

  Jim overheard Hec talking to Iris later about the flock of preachers. “They’re here to mourn the loss of something more than a good man,” he said. Jim wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but he saw a grievous sadness in the eyes of the preachers. Father Fisher had been one of them and yet never really one of them at all. For all his good deeds, he had been an imposter, a fake. He had abused his power horribly and in his actions had made a mockery of what was for them a profound and abiding belief.

  Ormond McCoy built a pine coffin for the funeral. Pat McCoy and Daisy Tysick helped Iris with the luncheon which was held at the farm. Nancy helped, too. It was hard for her to be there at all, but she returned from Tweed at Iris’s request. And at the request of Ruth Rose. It was Ruth Rose who reminded anyone who would listen of her mother’s bravery in sending the letters to Iris.

  Lettie Kitchen brought her horrible green Jello with miniature marshmallows to the funeral. Hec Menzies went around getting people to try it. “Ever taste anything like that?” he asked in disbelief.

  The Church of the Blessed Transfiguration came through with a loan to help out Jim and Iris. Iris had a good mind not to accept it, but Hec was able to convince her that she would be doing them a favour if she could accept the donation. The Church had a lot of healing to do.

  So Iris was able to quit her job at the soap factory and concentrate on the farm. She and Jim planned crops together on winter evenings. Sometimes Ruth Rose was there. She seemed to live somewhere between her own new home, an apartment on the outskirts of Ladybank that she shared with Nancy, and her adopted home with Jim and Iris. The two households were connected by Ruth Rose Way.

  Jim showed her how to do farm chores. She didn’t much like farm chores. In the fullness of winter when the land hibernated under a thick goose-down of snow, he taught her to cross-country ski.

  One day they followed the lane down through the cornfields to the low land. They passed through the cedar grove, Jim in the lead, carving a path. The grove held no ghosts for him any longer. Ruth Rose followed at a safe distance — she wasn’t all that sure on her skis. But as the hill grew steeper, the distance between them grew shorter. She was going too fast — couldn’t help it. She was out of control.

  “Look out!” she called — too late. Before Jim could get out of her path, she slammed into him, sending him flying head first into the snow. She came tumbling after.

  They finally stopped laughing and extricated themselves from the pile of pick-up sticks that were their limbs and poles and skis. Ruth Rose, glad to be on her own two feet again, ploughed through the snow to the beaver dam.

  “Look at this,” she called excitedly to Jim.

  It was Gladys, long forgotten, up to her waist in a snowdrift, but still standing guard over the breech in the dam. Her purple fedora had blown away and was caught in the branches of a nearby tree. Her pink fright-wig was more frightful than ever, embroidered with brown leaves and twigs.

  “Poor old thing,” said Ruth Rose. “Let’s straighten you up.”

  She groomed the scarecrow’s tousled locks while Jim reclaimed her fedora with the help of a ski pole.

  “What’s this?” Ruth Rose asked. She had found the plastic bag Jim had pinned to Gladys’s chest. There was a sheet of water-stained paper inside; the message was no longer decipherable. Jim took the sheet from her.

  “It said something like No Beavers or Crazy Girls Allowed.”

  “I figured as much,” said Ruth Rose and shoved him off the beaver dam into a deep drift of snow. Then she turned her attention to the scarecrow. “We can stay if we want, can’t we, Gladdy?” She wrapped her arms around the stick figure to give her a hug but pulled away quickly. “Pee-ew!” she said. “You stink, girl.” She made a face at Jim, then her eyes lit up. “But I know how to fix that.” And, unzipping her parka, she dug from an inner pocket a glass vial half filled with rose water. The vial glittered in the snow-white light.

  She opened the bottle and sprinkled a few drops over Gladys. She put a dab or two behind where her ears might have been if she’d had any. She stopped and gazed at the little bottle, smiling at some memory. Then suddenly she tipped it over the scarecrow until the last drop glistening on the glass lip dripped off, soaked up in its ragtag clothes.

  Jim closed his eyes, breathed in deeply. It was like bottled spring when the world was still knee-deep in winter.

  When he opened his eyes, Ruth Rose was tucking the empty vial into one of Gladys’s tuxedo pockets.

  They headed back to their skis, but when they were all strapped in and Ruth Rose had already got her skis in the groove for home, Jim said, “I’ll catch you up,” turned the other way and headed down through the gulch alone.

  He crossed Incognito Creek — invisible now, buried, waiting for the melt. Then he slogged up the hill that led to the back meadow. Out in the open, the sun was warm, though the wind was brisk. It felt wonderfully cool on his face, flushed with the exertion of his climb.

  He stopped in the middle of the field and looked around. There were fences that needed mending, but nothing a few cedar poles and wire couldn’t fix. Ormond had mentioned he had some cedar, if Jim was interested. And once the meadow was secure, they could think about getting in a head or two of beef cattle again. Start slowly, begin to build up a herd. It was good grazing land up here. A shame to waste.

  He turned and started heading back towards the house. They could talk about it over supper. The three of them.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This novel grew out of a short story called “The Bermuda Triangle,” which appeared in my collection Lord of the Fries. I am thankful to Melanie Kroupa for suggesting that I think about following up on the unsolved mystery that is at the heart of that short story.

  The novel gathered momentum thanks to an article in the archives of the Perth Courier. I would like to thank John Clement and Maureen Pegg and the staff there for letting me poke around the old volumes at my leisure.

  A writer is always in debt to good librarians, and Perth is blessed with two of the be
st: Faye Cunningham and Susan Snyder, thanks. But also, in this case, I’d like to thank the resourceful Ann MacPhail at Algonquin College. Dave Onion proved helpful at one critical point in the story, as did David Sentesy. Thank you, gentlemen.

  And thank you to my family: Amanda, Xan, Maddy and Lewis, who continue to put up with me. Stories come and go; thank God for family.

  Copyright

  The author is grateful for the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts towards the writing of this book.

  Copyright © 2000 by Tim Wynne-Jones

  First mass market edition 2002

  Second printing 2004

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from CANCOPY (Canadian Reprography Collective), Toronto, Ontario.

  Groundwood Books/Douglas & Mclntyre

  720 Bathurst Street, Suite 500

  Toronto, Ontario M5S 2R4

  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

  National Library of Canada Cataloging in Publication

  Wynne-Jones, Tim

  The boy in the burning house / Tim Wynne-Jones.-1st mass market ed.

  ISBN 0-88899-500-8

  I. Title.

  PS8595.Y59B69 2002 jC813’.54 C2002-904106-6

  PZ7

  Design by Michael Solomon

  Cover illustration by Greg Spalenka (www.spalenka.com)

  Printed and bound in Canada

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