Downhill Chance

by Donna Morrissey

  "They were getting root rot, Clair," said Missy, the sullenness of her tone belying the carelessness of her shrug, and had Hannah been older, she would've known that her aunt was not without knowing this place of unquiet within her mother, and that by digging up the sweet williams, she had sought to broaden these waters of unrest and to flood what pools of quiet might be found. But she was neither older nor clever. And seeing her aunt step off the stoop and toe the ground more firmly around one of the bluebells, and knowing from deeds past done that the wait for the hand to fall is far more torturous than any slap it should beget, she ran to her aunt's side.

  "We likes the bluebells best—don't we, Aunt Missy." Hoping to persuade her mother of the same, she flashed a quick smile and starting up her prancing again, calling out, "Come, Mommy, come hear our song." Plucking a dandelion from its stem and puffing its seeds high over her head, she raised her face to their descent, hopping and skipping around the ring of dead grass, chanting, "Fairies, fairies, one, two, three; fairies, fairies, come to we—come on, Mommy, come on, Aunt Missy—banshees, banshees, go to hell, the little girl's sleeping in her little bluebell." She shrieked in surprise as her mother's hand suddenly snapped around her wrist, pulling her out of the fairy ring. "You don't like our song," she cried out as her mother bent over, picking up one of the dead flowers.

  "How could you?" asked Clair, her tone tight with anger, her short, curly dark hair falling away from her forehead as she watched her younger sister trail towards her.

  "You've never bothered with them before," said Missy.

  Clair rose, palming the flower as one might a dying baby bird, her eyes hard as they beheld Missy's. Then dropping the flower, she marched back towards the gate, her back rigid.

  "Mommeee!" Hannah wailed. "I wants to stay the night—you never lets me stay the night," she wailed louder as her mother reached out her hand for her to follow.

  "Perhaps she thinks I can't look after you properly," cut in Missy, as Clair kept walking. "Perhaps she thinks I'm mental—like Daddy was—is that what you thinks, Clair—that I'm mental?" she called out, and as her sister's step faltered Missy leapt into the fairy ring and skipped around as Hannah had done. "Perhaps I am. Perhaps I thinks I'm a fairy." And swinging her arms off from her sides, she started hopping and skipping faster and faster around the ring, her hair bouncing around her shoulders, her voice feigning a little girl sound, she half-chanted, half-shouted, "Perhaps I'm a changeling bought by the fairies. Or an angel. Wouldn't that be nice, Clair—to be an angel? Mommy always said I was real little angel, and perhaps that's what I am—not Missy at all but a wee little angel, weee." Leaping into the middle of the ring, she slumped down, looking up at Clair through eyes scarcely visible behind the curtain of curls screening her face.

  There is a moment when what is known most comfortably can present itself most queerly if seen through an eye of sudden distortion, like a horse emerging through a dense fog. And in that moment, with Missy slumped before her, the sun flushing out the blue of her eyes through the yellow of her hair, and the bundles of dead flowers scattered around her feet, Clair put her hand to her stomach as in sudden fright.

  "It's all right," said Missy, rising, smoothing her hair back from her face. "I'm not mental yet—leastways, I don't think I am." She attempted a laugh as Clair continued staring at her. "It's because of Uncle Sim that you won't let her stay, isn't it?"

  "She's—she's too young," said Clair, her voice guttural, her words thick. And with the same weight slowing her movements as thickening her speech, she took hold of Hannah's hand and began walking to the gate. Opening her mouth, Hannah let out the bawl of a bull moose, but it could well have been the mewling of a kitten, so unhearing was her mother as she marched woodenly through the gate.

  "She's older than I was when I started sleeping at the grandmother's," Missy called out, her tone more accusing than declaring, but Clair never faltered, despite Hannah's hanging back, fuming against every step that took her farther and farther from the big white house with the bluebells swaying beneath its kitchen window.

  "We were going to scrape fairy butter," she cried, near tripping over a ratty-looking cat scooting between her legs. Her mother looked back, and so tightly did her hand clutch Hannah's it were as if she saw the ghost of the father that her aunt Missy sometimes told her about, who'd sit in the window, watching through blackened eyes that were horribly wrinkled, making noises in his throat, and screaming horrid demon screams. Turning back to the road, she began walking faster and faster down towards the wharf until Hannah was almost running to keep up with her.

  "Mommeee!" she wailed in protest, but then shut her mouth and snatched back her hand as she spotted Lynn hanging around a grunt, lending half an ear to whatever it was her father was hollering up at her from down in his boat.

  "Just a minute, Hannah," said Clair, her tone as heavy as the hand she laid upon her daughter's shoulder, holding her back. Bending towards the child, she raised a finger, stroking her cheek. "Perhaps when you're a little older, you can stay," she half whispered, her mouth working as though it were trying to say many things.

  "I'm nine!" stated Hannah loudly.

  "Yes, I knows, and almost as tall as Aunt Missy," said Clair, pulling a hanky out of her bosom and wiping at Hannah's chin.

  "Lynn stays with her aunt."

  "She got grandparents watching after her as well—"

  "Uncle Sim looks after me too," shouted Hannah, knowing full well the foul sound the uncle's name made in her mother's ear, and then darted forward with the same skewed look as her aunt had, ripping up the sweet williams and replacing them with bluebells. Ignoring her mother's warning cry, she ran past the old rotting-down building that used to be Lynn's grandfather's store, and to the grunt where Lynn was saucing her father. Lynn turned in greeting as Hannah approached, her tongue protruding from her mouth like a fat wriggling slug. Exhibiting a fine-looking slug of her own, Hannah jumped over the grunt and scampered down the ladder into the boat.

  "What's the matter—someone steal your money?" asked Frankie as she landed with both feet into the boat, rocking it noisily. Glowering his way, and wanting to rock the boat harder, she trotted heavily to the stern, throwing herself against the side of the boat, leaning out over.

  Lynn's face reflected up from the darkened depths of the sea. "Hannah's not allowed to sta-aay."

  "Pass her down. I bars her in the cuddy," sang out Frankie, and the look on Clair's face suggested she just might; but Lynn was already tandering off the wharf, up over the hill.

  "Best buddies one minute, and savages the next—like their fathers, heh," said Frankie, helping Clair aboard. "Want's to stay agin, do she?" he asked, coiling the painter at his feet as Clair, sighing in agreement, fixed herself away on a wooden bench.

  "I swear, they gets more hardening as the day is long," she said. And Hannah, knowing the futility now of finding her way back to her aunt, turned to this mother who was always spoiling things and yelled, "I'm not hardening!"

  "Ohh, Hannah."

  "Tell you what, Hannah," said Frankie, shoving them off from the wharf, "how's about you steering us straight to Rocky Head and I'll bring you back agin next time I comes."

  "You never means nothing you says, Frankie!"

  "Hannah," warned Clair.

  "Well, that's what Uncle Calve says."

  "Hannah!" And her mother shot to her feet. "You take that tiller this minute, young lady, else you'll be floating home on a log."

  Flinging herself around, Hannah grabbed hold of the wooden lever, the noise of her anger clouding reason. Bluebells, spiders webs, fairies all became part of the undertow that grew stronger and stronger with each fathom of sea buoying her onward. She heard little of the talk about a new road coming through, and Frankie's new job as member of some house, or her mother's asking something about a new store. Scowling her face to such contortions that the muscles supporting it began to ache, she burrowed her eyes into the sea—the one place that hoarded none
of the silly scorns of people, only fish that fed them their flesh. Leastways, that's what her father always said whenever he took her fishing down at Chouse, and his was a word that once rooted in his girl's mind shadowed all else in the Tightness of its bloom.

  She spotted him first as they neared Rocky Head. On the beach, his hair catching the sun's sheen, he stood as he always did whenever she and her mother returned from the Basin, arms out, reaching, eyes searching, and the broad easy smile appearing last, the flutter of a snipe's wings when the last of her chicks return to roost in the down of her underwing. She hung back as he lifted her mother out of the boat, setting her down gently, cautioning her to be careful as he shook his head at Frankie, commenting on how blousy the wind had gotten, and raising his brow at Clair as she brushed down her skirts, chiding him for becoming more and more like his mother for worrying. And as Frankie teased his fear over a little lop, and threatened to put a road down to Chouse someday, he tugged on one of her mother's dark curls, saying in his warm, easy tones, "Yup, now there's a thought—a truck and a road—bet that might get you fishing with us, lovey. Didn't think so," he added at the sight of Clair's nose wrinkling. Turning to Frankie, he said, "Guess I'm just going to have to start baiting her hooks like she asks. A bit proud is what the Basin women are, what'd do you say, buddy?"

  "Yup. The pickle barrel, sir, is what them women likes," agreed Frankie. "Not something fresh off the hook."

  "Whoa, now, what's wrong here?" asked Luke, as Hannah rose from her slouch and started unsteadily towards him, holding tight to her pout.

  "Mommy won't let me stay at Aunt Missy's."

  "Now, where have I heard that before?" said Luke as he lifted her out of the boat. "Did you remember to invite her down to see Brother?"

  "She don't like babies."

  "Sure she do; perhaps when you goes up agin—"

  "Don't set her up," cut in Clair. And as Luke raised his brow to the sharpness of her tone, she turned from him, yoked once more by the heaviness that had laid hold of her earlier.

  "Hey," said Luke, reaching for her, but he was cut short by Prude's cries as she scurried onto the bank, wisps of white from her loosely plaited hair clouding her face, and red splotches marking her throat.

  "Luuke! Luke, did you tell him? There's a stranger come ashore down Gold Cove," she cried out to Frankie as Luke shook his head with a groan. "You mind now, Luke," she warned, shaking her fist, "there was a time when you'd be in the woods by now, trying to catch your breath with the thoughts of a stranger coming—"

  "For God's sake, Mother, can't a stranger come ashore without you thinking it's Satan?"

  "You'll mock me one day," cried Prude. "He's wearing the devil's coat is what I said—all black skin and full of silver zippers and chains. It's the road he's on about, I knows because I seen it in my tea, and what's that if it's not the devil's work, putting through roads where the people don't want them?"

  "He'd be coming by way of the Basin if it was the road he was about," said Frankie, "not down the bay somewhere. Luke, climb in and have a look at the piston—she's been skipping."

  "I'm fine—go ahead," said Clair, catching Luke's look of concern as she made her way up over the bank towards Prude. "Hannah, where's Hannah?"

  "Hiding out, is what," said Luke, pulling her from where she was nearly concealed besides the boat. "Go get Brother for your mother, now," he ordered, boosting her up over the bank with a pat on the behind, "and then come help me chop splits. Hurry on, now."

  "What's she, sick?" asked Prude as Hannah trudged up over the bank, scarcely able to see over the ridge of her brow.

  "She likes her pout, is all," said Clair. "Show, let me see your knee—is the swelling gone down?"

  "Hardening, that's what they is, then," said Prude, "not like when I was a girl and your mother spoke. Go on," she scolded Hannah, "and get the baby like your father told you. My oh my, they got faces like a boiled boot—the whole lot of them, not like when I was a girl and the old mother spoke. Go on, now like your father says."

  Glowering more deeply, Hannah plodded towards the string of houses and woodsheds before her, dully hearing her father calling out, reminding her again to come help him cleave splits. On other days his offer might have sent her feet racing from the lashings coming from the tongues of the elders like rocks rattling down a cliff face. But on this day—this day of being wrenched from the scent of the fairy ring, the intrigue of her aunt's stories and the swaying heads of the bluebells, she wanted no comfort. Rather, she wanted to stand before them, gathering around her the grey launched forward by the houses and woodsheds, and to wear it as a cloak that grew thicker with each scolding word buckling her knees.

  She turned to them, deepening the sulk that had taken over from the pout. Her father was hunched over the engine house with her uncle Frankie, and her mother was feeling around her grammy Prude's knee, checking for water under the cap; and Grammy was back to ranting about the stranger, bringing worry to her door.

  They weren't even watching. They didn't care. How was it, then, that they could stand all knowingly before a youngster over some misfortune or unjust deed when they were so oblivious of a pair of knees, naked to the cold and buckling in sorrow?

  "Mind you tells her it's his feeding time," her aunt Nora called after her as she walked unsteadily across the patch, balancing her three-month-old brother in her arms, her face held aside from the sight of his slobbering all over his fists. "And that he was the prince, the real little prince, and his bowels heartier than Grammy Prude's now with the bit of squawroot I fed him this morning. And mind you tells her to burn some flour—his bum's getting another rash—perhaps because of the agueweed."

  Her mother had the door closed, mindless of the heat kicking out of the wood stove as Hannah traipsed back in, bearing Brother. She turned from where she'd been standing by the window watching Luke busying himself around the woodpile, and gazed at Brother, unhearing of his fussing, Hannah knew, for she was back at Chouse agin, thrashing waters—had been ever since she'd left Missy's.

  "Was he good?" she asked absently as Hannah kicked shut the door behind her.

  "He got vomit on him," she replied, dumping the baby into his crib.

  "Mercy," exclaimed Clair. Hurrying towards the crib, she clicked her tongue disapprovingly, pulling the ever-present handkerchief out of her bosom. "You got to be more gentle, Hannah," she scolded, dabbing at the baby's mouth, but her firstborn was already snatching open the door and scooting across the patch to the side of the house.

  Luke was straddling the spindle, the blade of his axe held against the mounted, round grindstone, and his face screwed up against the wailing of stone cutting steel. Hannah straddled the spindle opposite side of him, taking care to keep her feet away from the treadle as he worked it with his. It was always warmer here to the lee of the house with the easterlies being blocked. And with the woodshed barring Frankie's windows, and the woodpile blocking most of the opening onto the beach, it felt sheltered from prying eyes as well—and that's how her father liked it, he always told her—feeling sheltered and alone. Except for Hannah, he'd quickly add. She was his best buddy, and being with a best buddy was like being by yourself, for you never, ever had to talk, and you never, ever had to listen.

  "Got Brother, did you?" he asked, lifting the axe from the stone, squinting closer at the blade.

  She nodded.

  "Hey?" he asked.

  "You knows," she answered irritably.

  Wetting down the stone from a bucket hanging off the spindle, he flicked a drop at her face. "Wasn't bawling, was he?"

  "Stop," she said sulkily, wiping the water off her face.

  "Was he bawling?"

  "He's always bawling."

  "Gets on your nerves, do he? Watch your knees, lovey," he cautioned, working the treadle again, and laying the axe against the spinning stone. "Did you get your candies at the store?"

  She nodded, fingering a piece she held in her pocket for him.

  "
That's good. And you gave a piece to Aunt Missy? Yup, you're a real nice girl," he said after she nodded some more. "Your mother's of a different mind."

  "I didn't do nothing."

  "Nope, nope, never thought you did." He lifted the axe for another look. "Just wondering what put her there, is all."

  She kicked at the treadle with the toe of her boot.

  "Yup, a strange way," her father repeated. "Reminds me of poor old Father the time he lost hisself in the woods, chasing the fairy."

  "Granda seen a fairy?!"

  "Yup."

  "Thought it was only mentals seen fairies."

  "Nope, nope, it's the other way around; people goes mental after they sees the fairies."

  "Granda went mental?"

  "Nope."

  "You just said—"

  "I said he went chasing after the fairies. I never said he seen one."

  "He must've seen one to go chasing after one."

  Her father looked up, sniffing at the air as he pulled a rock file out of the pocket of his work pants. "Smell that?" he asked, sniffing some more.

  "Smell what?"

  "Horseshit, ain't it?"

  "Yeah."

  "See any?"

  "It's from Uncle Nate's barn."

  "Do you see it?"

  "Can't see it if it's in the barn."

  "That figures, then. Guess you don't have to see something to know it's there. Like poor old Father, I guess. He knowed they was there and that's why he went after them. And they took him so far in the woods, he almost never got out. I tell you, he never went to bed agin without the dandelion seed on his tongue."

  "He eat dandelions?"

  "Yup. The only way he'd go to sleep."

  "What about the wintertime?"