Forever Finley

by Holly Schindler

  “I didn’t mean to scare Kelly,” Thomas said, staring at the car. “That run-in I had with her in October…I was looking for Finley’s shawl. We all were. You know how powerful it is. Finley’s soul is in that shawl. A soul cannot be tossed away, not like last month’s garbage.” He shook his head. The concept of a garbage dump was still strange to him. That it should be a good idea to create things and then pile them up where they could leak poisons and modern chemicals straight into the earth. So much of the modern world was that way, though—it had become more advanced, but not in any way that he found impressive or inspiring. It seemed to him that modern people behaved like the giants from their very own fairy tales. Fee-fi-fo-fum. Tromping about, slamming their massive feet into the ground, making heavy, ugly footprints along the way.

  Amos had been furious with him last fall, though, when Thomas’s search had brought him too close to Kelly. He’d eyed him in a way that fathers eyed unruly children. Thomas thought of scolding him right back, reminding Amos that no reunion would have ever been possible without him. But the words fell apart in his mouth. Mostly because Amos had been right. His actions had been foolish. At the time, he’d just been so confident he would find the shawl that had disappeared from Mary’s home—thrown out by contractors. He still had a hard time believing it had yet to make an appearance anywhere.

  “Finley’s shawl is gone, and now…If we don’t act prudently…The legend could very well die. I’ll be shunted to a footnote in a history book in the genealogy section of the library. And I might never—I—” Amos stopped. He’s words sounded selfish, but rang with a truth all three understood.

  Maybe it had been a foolish plan. But without this ridiculously unobtainable goal, what would he have?

  “It can’t be completely lost,” Thomas insisted. “Not a person’s heart and soul. Besides, this time, we all know you’ve been priming more than one person to keep the legend alive. It’s not just George, not just Mary. You’ve got a whole group of them—”

  “—who could just as easily talk each other out of not believing as believing if we’re not careful,” Amos said.

  “At the rate they’re going, they’ll never talk each other into or out of anything,” George grumbled. “Each time they start to reach out, start to tell another Finley townsperson what they’ve seen—something stops them.”

  “We’ve got to convince them of their importance,” Amos said. “We’re still riding a fine line. You both know that. And all that chanting, the whispering…”

  “We really are just trying to warn everyone,” George said softly.

  “It’s coming,” Thomas agreed. “Nothing we can do about that. But we can help everyone prepare. A storm is definitely blowing in. When it finally shows itself, it’s bound to change everything.”

  Amos nodded. He was every bit as certain of that as his two friends were. But change everything how? For the better? Or prove to be the destruction he had so long feared? The kind of destruction that could permanently erase any steps he’d taken to get closer to Finley?

  “Others have seen her, you know,” Thomas whispered, searching Amos’s face for some hint of a reaction.

  Amos wasn’t quite sure what to feel. He had been searching for her for so long. His Finley. For more than a hundred years now, she had been the only thing on his mind. In life, he’d created the town. In death, he’d performed a million tiny little miracles, all his good deeds adding up, each favor he granted making him one step closer to her.

  At least, that was what he’d hoped and prayed for.

  “She’s been freed,” Thomas said.

  “Summoned,” George corrected.

  If that were true, though, where was she?

  “I’ve seen her,” Thomas said.

  Amos shivered. He had no words. He put his hands in his pockets, turned his head toward the ground. She had almost become unreal to him. Like something he had dreamed up. He had once been so sure of how he would act when they next saw each other—what he would say, what she would look like. Now, when he tried to picture her, the whole imagined scene came to him in little more than a fuzzy blur. He had waited so, so long. Who would he be without the waiting?

  Who was Finley now? How would he look to her? Like an old man, surely.

  “I’ve tried to bring her to you,” Thomas said. “To show her the way. But each time I get close, the world around her disappears. Or perhaps it’s Finley that does the disappearing. All I know is, I can’t get to her.”

  “It’s the shawl,” George said. “We need the shawl.”

  A harsh gust of unseasonably hot wind made Amos turn his face toward the sky.

  “It’s definitely blowing in,” George said. Amos’s rake fell to the ground, into a shallow pile of leaves and grass clippings, as if pushed by an invisible hand. “It’s coming. Nothing we can do about that. But we can help everyone prepare. You want that, too, don’t you?”

  He did. This was no longer just about himself. Or even about himself and Finley. Amos felt he had an entire town of children to protect. They all belonged to him. He had brought them here, after all; they had made Finley the perfect town, and he intended to keep them happy and safe as long as possible. He was especially fond of the small group he had chosen to see something—well—supernatural. That was what the living would call creatures like himself and George and Thomas. “Supernatural.” He liked that word. It was ever so much better than “ghost.”

  He had picked some for their youth, their longevity—their ability to carry the legend on nearly as long as Mary had. And for their creative or open minds. The ability to see beyond the surface level of things. Others, he’d chosen for the exact opposite reason—because they were older, had deeper ties to former ways of life. Understood the importance of history. One he had his eye on for his family ties. Amos had liked Miriam, but had discounted her—she talked too much. The faces of that chosen group began to flash in Amos’s mind’s eye: Mark and Norma. Kelly. Natalie and Damien. Annie and Justin and Michael. Especially Michael. That music of his—it did something to Amos. Stirred in him something that had been asleep for such a long time. Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could lean against the pavilion in the cemetery and still hear the faint sounds of Michael’s song floating his way from the Powell farmhouse. The same house where Finley had passed away, just moments before Amos’s arrival home from war, as he’d raced up the dirt path to the Powell place, calling out to her. Her name on your lips—it was the last music she heard, her father had tried to tell Amos, as a way to comfort him.

  Amos turned slightly, squinted at Thomas. “There’s something more.” He could see it in Thomas’s face.

  “Her name is gone from the cave,” Thomas said.

  “What does that mean?” Amos asked.

  Thomas shook his head. But the look on his face clearly indicated it wasn’t a good sign that Finley’s name had been separated from Amos’s.

  “Perhaps time did something to her heart,” Amos said. “She’s not bound to me. She has the freedom to choose. Isn’t that right?”

  Thomas looked the other way. It would be hard to believe that Finley would have chosen something other than to join Amos. But it was possible. Thomas had not spoken to her. Only seen her, even at the hospital window last month. Seen her, and evidence of the miracle she had performed for Patricia. What if she had done something wonderful in order to get another wish granted—a wish other than reunite with Amos?

  And if Finley was gone, what did that mean for Amos? What did it mean for Thomas and George?

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  In reality, Finley was walking the edge of Miriam Holcomb’s property. She had been for the past month. It’d become her home away from home. It was hard to be at the old Powell farmstead without her parents, without her siblings. It seemed improbable to her that they could be in that ground behind the house, buried in the old family cemetery. Anytime she thought of it, the words clanged in her head like the ring of a cracked bell. Everyone was still
at home, but also not at home. How could it be that she was out walking the land, and none of the rest of them were? It made her feel so lonely. Especially since she had not figured out how to get to Amos.

  Her shawl had disappeared. Was maybe even gone forever. She feared her original hopes for a forever life with Amos were gone, too. All that tiring work—four years of tatting. When it had gone missing, she’d heard the women in town throw the word “crochet” about—a term they seemed more familiar with these days. But that wasn’t what Finley’d done at all. Tatting was much harder work than crocheting. More involved, and it yielded lovelier, more delicate results. To crochet her wedding shawl would have been to take the easy way out. And that’s not what Finley did.

  Miriam Holcomb had several outbuildings on her property that she no longer used. The kind of outbuildings where Finley could rest undisturbed. Miriam’s dog Chester liked to smell the ground where Finley walked. He knew she was there. Not that Finley minded. She liked dogs. She had one with a headstone of his own, right next to hers at the Powell farmstead, where the rest of her family remained.

  Miriam’s place was more comfortable than the rest of the town—it felt more like the home Finley had known as a girl. After all, in the land of Finley’s youth, there had not been a town at all, only wild prairies alternating with row crops. Miriam’s acres were more familiar—try as she might, she just could not get accustomed to pavement, artificially lighted roads, and all the noise that came with it.

  Besides, Miriam was the same size as Finley. She had stolen not only Miriam’s overalls from the clothesline, but some pants and a few blouses. Thanks to Miriam, she always had something clean to wear (even though it still seemed to her that young ladies should never be seen in long pants). The fabrics that made up the clothes felt odd against her skin. Strangely soft and like nothing she had ever worn before.

  She was changing into a new shirt, in fact, when the chant had come barreling toward Miriam’s property. She had heard it before, of course—it had been pulsing for weeks. But it was serious this time—it panted, it pummeled. It was coming straight for her—now that it was closer, Finley interpreted the sound in a new way. She had to take cover. Not just huddle behind a barrel in one of Miriam’s old tool sheds. She had to find a place of real protection.

  What a strange thing to think, she chided herself. Protection. Especially since she already had her own headstone. But no girl who had ever grown up in Missouri ever lost the fear of the warning sound Finley was listening to now. It sounded like—well—Finley had only heard the chugging engine of a train once in her life, but that was exactly what it sounded like. The sky darkened. The smell of disaster dampened the air.

  A tornado tugged down from the sky. Graceful. Deadly.

  Finley’s mind spun as she tried to think of a safe place.

  The back door flopped open and Miriam Holcomb burst outside, the knife in her hand gleaming in a blazing flash of lightning. She was a superstitious sort, Finley had learned over the past few months. The kind to always be counting crows, the kind to find meaning in which side up her found penny had landed. Cold rain stung Finley’s face as she watched Miriam drop to her knees beside the remnants of last summer’s garden and dig furiously into the loose soil with her fingers. She buried the knife blade up. A superstition nearly as old as the earth surrounding the stainless steel. Miriam intended to split the tornado. Cut it right in half. Keep everyone in town safe. Especially herself. That was how the living were: even the best of them, the kindest-hearted, the ones who worried about their loved ones—they were still primarily concerned with themselves. It had to be that way. Survival was always number one.

  Miriam rose and ran straight for the house, where Chester was barking at the back door. Finley squinted a moment, her hair slashing painfully across her cheeks in the furious wind. She watched as Miriam grabbed Chester’s collar and looped his leash around her waist, to make sure they wouldn’t be separated. And then they made a beeline for the fruit cellar—Miriam with a lantern in one hand.

  Finley dashed through the crunchy brown grass. If Miriam’s fruit cellar was taken, she needed to find a place of her own. But where?

  Before she even realized she’d made up her mind, she found herself sprinting toward the cave entrance. The same cave where she and her family had always taken shelter—from storms and even, during Amos’s war, from a band of Quantrill’s Raiders.

  She had just begun to duck inside when she saw Mary. Standing outside, her long white hair swirling into a thin tornado of its own. Mary was not burying knives. She was not entertaining any superstitions. She had entered the part of her life in which there was no need. Things were as they were. There was no changing it. This was the time for acceptance.

  Mary lifted a hand from her hip to wave.

  Finley gasped. Mary had seen her. Did she recognize her? They had not met, not in life. But Finley had gathered from snatches of overheard conversations that Mary was her own family. A descendant of the names on the headstones out there by Finley’s much-loved dog.

  A young man raced to her side, tugging gently on her arm. “Come on, Aunt Mary,” he said. “We’ve got to go to the storm shelter.”

  “No, Damien,” Mary insisted. “I need to stay right here. I want to see this.” She pointed toward the river that had always disappeared into the cave, now sloshing about its banks with a fury Mary had never known the water to exhibit in her one hundred years.

  “Not the river, not now, Mary,” Damien begged.

  “That river is the line between life and death. Old Thomas once told me that. I believe him. Even still.”

  Damien tugged harder. “Aunt Mary, we don’t know a Thomas.”

  “I do. I know Thomas. So did Finley.”

  “Mary, come on—”

  “Look—there’s a break in the current where it dips to enter the cave. Don’t you see it?”

  “We don’t have time for this, Aunt Mary.”

  “The town of Finley was founded on a broken heart. That river shows us the break in Amos’s heart. We only have to look to see it. Don’t you understand?”

  At that moment, the tornado touched ground with the force of a hundred thunderclaps. It smashed against the center of the town square, sucking up awnings and trees, swirling them around before spitting them out again. It broke windows and chewed up roofs and pushed cars onto sidewalks.

  It blew the glass out of the front of Norma’s antique store. And like a thief, the winds reached an arm into the opening and tossed the contents about—tearing pictures from the walls, toppling worn wooden furniture, and shattering glass chimneys on kerosene lamps. It opened the drawers in a heavy rolltop desk near the back, one that had been delivered from the Powell estate during the house remodel.

  The tornado rifled through its drawers. Searching. Because this tornado was no ordinary weather phenomenon. It was the mix of more than just hot and cold air. It was a swirl of living souls and the spirits of the past. It was now and it was then, it was hope and it was despair all swirling furiously together.

  At last, the tornado found what it had come looking for: a ribbon-bound stack of love letters in a secret compartment behind one of the drawers. Sent between Finley and Amos throughout the war. At Thomas’s suggestion, Amos had given the Powells the missives that Finley had written him. All those long and winding messages he had kept in his haversack through the war—through the battles and the stink of death and gunpowder and his all-consuming fear and exhaustion. Finley had kept every one that Amos had written, too—tucked away in the box that held her tatting supplies. The Powells had placed them all in the hidden compartment and they had rolled the top down. And the letters had never been seen again.

  Even though she had often been told of their existence when she was young, Mary had since forgotten them. No—not forgotten. Not completely. She had just not thought of them in ages. Memories worked a lot like a desk drawer, actually. Once a person’s memory bank got too cluttered, they couldn’t see
everything inside all at one glance. All the individual recollections were still in there, but buried beneath more recent—though not necessarily more important—happenings. Sometimes, it took an outside force to haul them into the light again.

  The tornado grabbed the long-hidden letters and made off with them, winding across the square. Swirling Mary’s way.

  On the Powell property, Damien pulled yet again on Mary’s arm. “Mary!” he screamed. “Please stop fighting me. The tornado’s getting closer—we don’t have time!”

  Behind Damien’s shoulder—far outside his line of vision—the entire river burst into a yellow glow. The kind of brilliant glow that Mary had never witnessed before. Brighter even than when Michael had stood before the microphone during the pre-wedding home-improvement fundraiser to fill the river with the notes of his song.

  Mary kept her eyes on the approaching funnel as Damien led her toward their fruit cellar. Reluctantly, he let go of her hand in order to grab the wooden door leading to the space below. The winds were too strong, though—he needed help. He shouted down to Natalie, who pushed at the door from the inside.

  As they struggled against the power of the wind, Mary opened her arms—as wide as she had as a young girl, in order to spin in the summer breeze. She wasn’t afraid. Storms like this had come and gone a thousand times in her life. A calmness overtook her suddenly.

  The tornado would not hurt them.

  It hovered overhead as Damien and his bride-to-be shouted to one another, their voices saturated with fear.

  In a swift motion that declared this was the task it had come to complete, the winds dropped the bound stack of letters into Mary’s hands.

  She hugged them to her chest. Tucked them inside her jacket.

  The cellar door finally burst open.

  Damien could not understand the smile on Mary’s face as he hauled her inside and closed the door behind her.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  The town was broken. Shattered, in places. It had a few open, gaping wounds.