CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KIT’S MARK
IT WAS A WEEK AFTER SCHOOL HAD LET out for summer, and Sid had come down the gully to greet me as I was walking back up from Crooked Feeder. Picking up a flat, sharp-edged rock, he skidded it across the water. Picking up another, I skidded it behind his. “Do you mind what they says?” he asked. “No.” “Yeah, you do.” “No, I don’t.” “I don’t believe you.” “I wish I didn’t,” I whispered, gazing at the spot where my rock had dropped beneath the sea. “But my heart stops beatin’ every single, solitary time someone speaks my name or even just looks my way. Every time Josie walks out the door, I’m scared she’s not goin’ to come back and they’re goin’ to come and send me away; even when she just goes to the store, I gets sick to my stomach.”
Sid stared at me in surprise. It was the most he had ever heard me say in one breath.
“Hey,” he said gently, squeezing my arm. “Nobody’s ever going to send you away.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“Sure, I can,” he said easily. “Think it through, Kit. You’re fourteen, almost fifteen. Soon, you’ll be old enough to quit school. Nobody can make you do anything then. You don’t have to worry about being sent away any more. That’s done with.”
“They sent Rose Parsons away.”
“That’s different. Her mother was too sick to take care of her, so they sent her away to work. She likes it where she is.”
“I wouldn’t want to be a servin’ girl.”
“You won’t. Sure, Drucie’s like a mother, isn’t she?”
“I still worry,” I said, skidding another rock across the water.
“Then, stop it,” he said almost savagely, catching me by the arm, again. “Nobody’s ever going to send you away from here, do you hear me?”
I stared into his eyes, my stomach quivering from the nearness of him, then pulled away and started walking up the beach. He followed behind, skidding more rocks out over the water, and whistling a little tune. I smiled, my mind strangely put to rest. Sometimes it felt like Sid had a way of knowing what others didn’t, and I was tired of being scared. And it was comforting having him near. More than comforting. It was like swallowing a mouthful of warmed soft drinks and feeling it fizz into my stomach.
We come to the gully and stepped stones all the way up, the spray from the late-spring run-off dampening our feet. Coming to the top, we peeled off our socks and boots and laid them across the top of a rock to dry.
“You have webbed toes,” Sid said, sitting down besides me.
“Nan calls them princess’s toes,” I defended, wriggling them.
“Let’s see.” Pulling my foot onto his lap, he examined it more closely. All four toes were perfectly webbed, except for the big one.
“How come she called them princess’s toes?”
“On account of some princesses havin’ to kiss too many frogs.”
“Mmm, looks like you been kissing lots of frogs.”
I giggled and tried to wriggle my foot out of his hand, but he held on tighter. Then with a sudden look of seriousness, he let go of my foot and cupping my chin, drew my face closer to his. I stared back helplessly as his eyes grazed over my face and came to rest on my mouth.
Suddenly, the sun was blotted and a shadow fell across us. Looking up, we both shrank back to see the reverend standing on the edge of the gully, his face black against the blue of the sky, his voice shaking with rage as he jabbed his finger at Sid and shrilled, “What are you doing with that girl?”
I pulled away from Sid and scrambled to my feet as the reverend slid down the side of the gully and stood jabbing his finger an inch from the point of my nose.
“You! You keep your whoring blood away from my son!”
“She’s not a whore!” Sid yelled, scrabbling to his feet alongside of me.
“She’s her mother’s blood!” the reverend hissed, still staring at me, the loathing in his voice crawling over me like maggots. I struggled to breathe, my nostrils flaring from the smell of rotting dogberries that suddenly clouded the air around me, seemingly reeking from my own body.
“You can’t talk to her like that,” Sid said from somewhere besides me, but his words were lost in another fiery blast spewing forth from the reverend’s lips.
“Hell’s damnation on you this day,” he cursed, still jabbing the finger of shame in my face. “You and your tramp of a mother.”
“Shut up!” Sid roared, then lunged after the reverend’s arm and, grabbing on to it, twisted him away from me. They stood staring at each other. Then the reverend jabbed the same pointing finger to Sid.
“I’ll see her gone if you ever come near this place again,” he threatened in a thin crackling voice. “Now go!” he ordered, pointing his finger up over the gully to where his car was parked, waiting.
“Don’t you listen to him, Kit,” Sid said, his voice choked with indignation. Then, throwing a last vengeful look at the reverend, he clawed up over the side of the gully. I took a step back as the reverend turned his darkened face my way.
“Cover your deformity,” he uttered with such repulsion that I immediately stood my good foot over the webbed one. “Isn’t it enough that we have to witness your mother’s?” Then wrinkling his nose as if he was having difficulty breathing past the stink of me, he lunged up over the gully after Sid. Taking care that he was out of sight, I climbed up behind him and peered over the lip of the gully. Josie had come out on the stoop just as Sid had stormed past and was about to chase after him when she seen the reverend swooping down before her, his black-clad arms flapping like a crow’s wings. I couldn’t hear all of what he was saying, excepting for “deformed, deformed,” which shrilled through the air louder then the rest. And I could tell from the tensing of her shoulders and her cowering backwards that she was frightened of him. Then he was hopping up over the hill to his shiny black car. Sid was waiting for him, and after a shouted exchange over the bonnet of the car, nothing of which I could clearly hear, they climbed inside and flew off down the road.
I walked slowly over to Josie, watching the spurt of dust spewing up behind the reverend’s car.
“What did he say?” I asked her, my voice a low murmur, my eyes still following the cloud of the dust.
Slap! I howled in shocked pain as the back of her hand came whopping across my face.
“Sid’s gone!” she shouted. “You defarmed! Defarmed! Sid’s gone!”
Then she was racing down the gully. Rubbing my hand over my face, I ran blindly inside the house. Stogging the stove full of wood, I filled up the water buckets and lifted them to the top of the crackling stove. Making sure the door was good and shut, I dragged the scrubbing tub out from the back room and sat down in Nan’s rocker, waiting for the water to heat up. Stinging far more than any welt Josie could land across my face was the feeling of dirt the reverend’s words had evoked within me—dirt and shame, dirt and shame. Could water ever cleanse a soul dirtied by shame?
Josie never came home that evening. It was the first time she had stayed away for the whole night since Doctor Hodgins had brought us home from the meeting. What was curious was, there had been no car or truck blowing its horn upon the road. She had simply disappeared down the gully. The next morning she walked in through the door, smelling like the goat, her clothes wrinkled and her hair a tangled mess.
“Where’d you go?” I demanded, meeting her partways across the kitchen.
“Where’d you go?” she shouted, kicking at Pirate as he scooted for the door between her legs. “You defarmed. You defarmed.”
“Don’t you go kickin’ Pirate,” I yelled.
“I will kick Pirate. Pirate’s defarmed. You’s farmed.”
“It’s not my fault the reverend made Sid leave.”
“Farmed! Farmed!”
Aunt Drucie’s singing cut through the air as she turned down the gully from the road. Shoving me to one side, Josie stalked down the hall to her room.
“Josie’s not feeli
ng well today,” I say as Aunt Drucie came in through the door, loosening her bandanna.
“Oh, the dear. Is it the flu?”
“She was up all night with the cramps. Best leave her be. You make a cup of tea, and I’ll just be out back, all right?”
“I’ll rest a spell before I haves me tea,” she said, making for the rocker. “You want one, Kittens?”
“No. I’ll just be out back.”
Going outside I sat on the grassy spot behind the house, overlooking the bay. It was where I often sat on troubled days, seeking comfort. From here I could look down on treetops and the backs of gulls as they swooped over the face of the wind-clawed sea, and see forever down the open-mouthed bay where the blue of the sky met the blue of the water. All sounds were quietened here, consumed by the stilling wind and rhythmic washing of the sea up over the shore. And as always whenever I sat on this spot, there grew a quiet in me, like that of being nestled amongst the rocks at Crooked Feeder. Only there was no pretending to be living amongst fantasy worlds up here. On sunny days like today, with the sky an endless cloud-beaten blue above me and the sea an endless white-capped blue beneath me and the two sifting together in the far hazy distance, I oftentimes felt like clutching onto the grass beneath me so’s not to be swallowed by the largeness around me. Like living amongst sky.
But, I found no quiet on this day. There was a restlessness around the gully that I hadn’t felt since the first days that Nan had passed on, the kind that comes when the tide goes against the wind. Nothing is predictable in that restlessness, and that’s how it felt since the reverend drove Sid off, like the tide against the wind. I sat and waited.
It was the next morning, just before Aunt Drucie came over for the day, that Josie left the house and went down the gully again. I was watching from the grassy spot on the back of the house. Funny how you can see something most every day of your life and never pause to think on it, and then one day it’s like you see it for the first time and suddenly you can’t rest for wanting to know everything about it. That’s how I felt, watching her jaunt off down the gully that morning. Without further thought I got up and, waving good morning to Aunt Drucie as she came down over the road, followed after Josie.
Ducking behind rocks and bushes, I followed her up the shore until she disappeared around the tip of Fox Point. Running up to the trees, I gradually worked my way around the point until I saw her. My blood run cold. Sitting on a clump of grass, his punt tied to a rock, was Shine. And he was waiting for Josie.
Shrinking back from the sight, I turned and walked back down the beach, and for the first time since Nan died, I felt tears stinging my eyes. Hopeless! It was all hopeless! Not only was Josie running off again, but it was with Shine, a flesh-eating murderer. What wouldn’t the reverend do with that?
I stumbled back up the gully, slipping and scraping both knees, but not looking or caring. Then the wind brought a sound to me. I stopped and listened. Thud! Thud! Thud! It was like church bells on a clear Sunday morning, pealing down over the gully to greet me, and I ran the rest of the ways, laughing and singing out like someone truly gone foolish. Seeing me running towards him with the tears streaming down my face and laughing at the same time, Sid tossed the axe to one side and hurried towards me.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, grasping me by the arms.
I shook my head, not knowing whether to go with the laughing or the bawling.
“Women!” he exclaimed, leading me around the corner of the house, away from Aunt Drucie’s face in the window and sitting me down on the grassy spot. “Always laughing and bawling and not knowing what either is for, like Mum whenever she’s having a fight with the reverend, which is most every single time he walks in through the door. I always knows that if she’s laughing, it’s bawling that she wants to be doing, so I treats her as if she’s bawling anyway, and tries to get her laughing instead, which is what I figure she’d rather be doing anyway.”
I laughed harder, not picking a lick of sense out of what he was saying.
“Here,” he said, taking a grey, pressed handkerchief out of his pocket and wiping at my nose. “Are you all right?”
I nodded.
“W-what do they fight about?” I asked with a snivel.
“Oh, the cut of the tablecloth, the width of my nose, or whether or not it’s the sniffles I have, or as the reverend argues, Mum making the consumption out of a drivel of snot.”
I laughed a little shakily.
“Who wins?”
“More like who loses. Mum has a drawer full of medicine which she loves to pour down my gullet, sick or no sick.”
Sid was grinning as he talked, a soft, curling grin that dimpled the corner of his mouth on one side. I looked down to my feet.
“Does the reverend know you’re here?” I asked.
“No.” He was silent for a bit, then, “Kit, I’m sorry about what he said. He had no right … ”
“It’s all right … ”
“No, it’s not all right. He’s a hypocritical bastard and he can cause you trouble. That’s why I left when he ordered me to—so’s he wouldn’t say anything else to hurt you. I would’ve been back sooner, only he was watching me real close. We have to be careful.”
“He’ll see you comin’ out here.”
“I’ll come on the days he’s gone down the bay.”
“But, your mother … ”
“She’ll say nothing. Christ, she hates it when the reverend’s mad at me. Don’t worry.” He touched my cheek, his finger warm against my skin. “We’ll work it out. He’s told no one about the other day, he’d rather keep it quiet than have whispers that you’re my girl.”
I turned away as his finger trailed the curve of my mouth.
“That’s why he came out here,” Sid said softly. “Haynes told him what they were saying about us in school. Kit, why won’t you look at me?”
I closed my eyes, my lips quavering at the nearness of him.
“Shine’s back,” I blurted out, not trusting to look at him. “Josie’s run off with him twice now.”
He stared at me disbelievingly.
“She’s with him right now,” I whispered.
“Shine! But, when did he … Christ! No wonder you’re upset. Are you sure?”
“She’s mad with me and didn’t come home the other night. This morning I followed her. He came for her in his boat, up by Fox Point.”
Rising to his feet, Sid smacked his fist in his hand and swept his eyes down over the gully before squatting besides me again.
“Christ! Shine!” He shook his head in the same hopeless way that I had cried.
“She was drunk the last time she come home.”
“Did Drucie see her?”
“No. Not yet. Everyone’s goin’ to find out, Sid,” I burst out, my voice rising hysterically. “They’re goin’ to make me leave here.”
“Shh, we already talked about that, no one’s going to send you away, and no one’s going to find out about Josie. Shine’s been hiding all this time, he won’t let anyone see him. If he’s moving around in a boat, he’s probably camping on Miller’s Island, somewhere. Someone will see him, Kit. Then, the Mounties’ll be after him in no time.”
“Supposin’ Josie’s with him when they see him?”
“We’ll work on keeping her home. What did you fight about?”
“You,” I said, hanging my head.
“Me!”
“She thinks it’s my fault the reverend drove you away.”
“Then she’ll be fine once she sees me. I’ll tell her I won’t ever come back if she goes off with Shine again. That’ll keep her home. And you can talk with her, too.”
“She don’t care about what I say.”
“Then make her care.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Make her care about you.”
I shook my head.“She won’t ever care about me.”
“Sure she does. Didn’t she go for Doctor Hodgins the day the reverend kidnappe
d you? Didn’t she?” He nudged when I didn’t answer. “Kit.” His voice had fallen to a whisper. “Perhaps it’s you who don’t care.”
“Even if I did, she wouldn’t notice,” I cried out, making to stand up.
“No, you’re wrong,” Sid said, pulling me back. “You keep forgetting, she’s a kid. She can feel what’s in your heart. What’s in your heart, Kit?”
“I don’t think about it,” I said.
“Sure you do.”
“No, I don’t.
“What did you feel when you saw her with Shine?”
“I don’t care about it, I only care about people findin’ out. Let go!” I snapped as I tried to get up and he kept pulling me back.
“What did you feel, Kit?”
“I hate her,” I said harshly. He was quiet, my words ringing through the stillness.
“You’re not alone,” he said with a sudden quiet. “There’s others that hate her, too … the reverend, May Eveleigh, Jimmy Randall, Haynes … ”
“They have no right,” I whispered. “Not them that made her so.”
“Then, shouldn’t they be the ones you hate?”
“I hate them, too. I hate every damn thing. I even hated Nan.”
Then I burst into tears, the shock of having said such a thing terrifying me right down to my toes.
“Sshh, now, you don’t mean that.”
“No, I don’t mean that, I don’t mean that,” I cried, sobbing all the harder as he rocked me. “I hate that she’s not here. I hate never feelin’ safe. And it’s Josie who always gets us in trouble.”
“Shh, that’s what we’re going to fix—Josie, so’s she won’t get in trouble with everybody, again.”
“How? How can we fix her?”
He pushed me back, and wiped my face with the pads of his thumbs.
“Show her that you care.”
“She won’t ever listen to me.”
“You’re not listening, Kit. It’s not what you say, it’s what you feel. Start changing how you feel towards her.”
Kit's Law Page 14
