Downhill Chance

by Donna Morrissey

  "Is he the fairy?" whispered Hannie to Missy.

  "Ohh, Hannie—"

  "My name's Gideon, and I'm nobody special, I fear."

  "Pity then, if that scar was for nothing," said Missy, reaching out a finger as if to trace the ravaged cheek. The exertion proved too much and she let her arm fall to her side, her mouth quivering as if she might cry—or smile. "Where do you come from?"

  "The Labrador, mostly. I've been camping by a pond just up over the hill. I'm looking to meet an old friend—but first, I just wanted to camp out for a bit. Then I saw you and—" he inhaled deeply "—I thought you'd feel safer knowing there was someone about. So I've stayed a little longer than I intended."

  "You're very kind."

  He smiled. "I know when it's more loneliness than solitude a person's feeling. Lie with her," he said to Hannah as Missy's eyes lids began to weigh heavy. "It'll help keep her warm. I'll be outside the door if she gets sick again."

  "Please—take a blanket," said Missy as he rose.

  "I have one. Rest now." And the door closed behind him. Crawling in besides Missy, Hannah scarcely had time to pull the blanket around her shoulders before she felt her aunt's breathing deepening on her nape.

  "He's nice, isn't he, Hannie?" she murmured, almost in sleep.

  Hannah nodded, saying nothing, her eyes fastened to the window. Missy's body tightened behind her and it felt as if she might get sick again. But she turned towards the wall, bringing her knees up to her stomach, and became calm again. Several times during the rest of the night Hannah was wakened by her aunt's dry retching, but each time Missy soothed her back to sleep, assuring her that all would be fine by morning—it was just being this way that made her sick, and she would soon be over it.

  Finally, morning came. Hannah awakened, smelling smoke. Glancing around the empty shack, she bolted outside and through the brambles. Missy was sitting on a log besides a fire Gideon was feeding, a steaming cup of tea held between her hands. They looked kindred for a second, and far from the world in which they sat, he with his grizzly fair hair springing out in disarray around his head, and her hair, half freed as well from her ponytail like a cloud around her tiny, wan face. She wore a blanket, wrapped shawl-like around her shoulders. With his white shirt hung far down over his trousers, he stood over her, fanning with his hands a gust of smoke spiralling around her face, as she reached towards him, waving back the same. When they heard the rocks crunch beneath Hannah's feet, they turned to her, and Hannah noticed the same touch of sadness that so comfortably puckered the corners of his mouth now nestling around hers.

  No picture could have been more unsettling. This aunt had been alone, pacing the floor of her room, bemoaning the fate fallen upon her, but she had found comfort in Hannah. It was Hannah she sat besides, listening to the wanderings of the brook, and Hannah who took the midnight trek along a moonlit beach in search of a place she could feel safe. Then he appeared, like Jonah out of the mouth of the whale, holding her soul. He had walked tall out of that cavity, his step sure upon the rocks protruding from the cavern's mouth. And now it was to him she looked—she, whose ankles were still mired in the kelp strangling the cove's waters.

  "Come, Hannie," she said, holding out her hand. "We'll have tea before we leaves."

  "Won't the fishers be up soon?" asked Hannah, dragging her step.

  "We've time—it's Sunday, remember?"

  "A spoonful?" asked he.

  She slewed her eyes towards him, his bony fingers slow as he measured the sweet molasses into a cup of black tea. Crouching besides her aunt, she accepted the cup.

  "Her name's Hannah, but I calls her Hannie," said Missy, finger-combing a lock of hair off Hannah's cheek.

  "That's a strong name, Hannah," said Gideon. "I like Hannie, too. It's soft and easy to the tongue. What name will your child carry?" he asked, turning to Missy, his brown eye drooping onto the blanket concealing her belly.

  Missy's eyes startled onto his face as he brought forth this thing that had thus far remained a sinful deed. And slowly shaking her head, she slouched forward, her arms instinctively wrapping around what was now a child in want of a name.

  "It's a merry-begot," exclaimed Hannah, in a desperate urge to push the thing back in, then cringed as her aunt's cheeks suffused with colour.

  "I've always wished to be that," said Gideon, busying himself with feeding the fire, "and to carry the charm of such a night."

  Hannah chanced a sideways glance at her aunt, but the words were already sliding from her tongue. "What's a merry-begot?"

  "Lord, Hannie—!"

  "See that?" cut in Gideon, directing her attention towards a slender, transparent-winged dragonfly as it flew before them and lit upon a pool of still water. "See it? Would you think that just last night, that was a grey slug, living under the water, eating fly spit? And now look at it—it floated to surface this morning and became that—a blue damsel. See the blue in its wings?" he asked, his words so lilting it sounded as though he were singing. "In the moonlight, fluttering merrily over the meadows, it's even bluer. And then—" he sat back on his haunches, peering keenly at Hannah over the fire "—it meets up with another damsel, a boy damsel, and they touch in a certain way—and—" PUFF!! Flames shot up from the fire with a rattling hiss, sending Hannah and Missy drawing back in fright and turning wide-eyed onto Gideon as he whispered, "Another damsel is begotten. And that, Hannie, is how a merry-begot is gotten."

  "How'd you do that?" Hannah demanded.

  "Do what?"

  "You knows—with the fire."

  "I only have one eye, you know," he said, pouring more tea, "and it was busy seeing how pretty your aunt would look dancing around the meadow." The orange danced brightly off his eye as he turned it onto Missy. "This merry-begot must have the prettiest name. What do you think?" he asked, flashing the queerily lit eye onto Hannah.

  "I think you're strange," accused Hannah.

  "Hannah!" exclaimed Missy.

  "Most people thinks that—when they first see me," said Gideon, touching his scarred cheek. "But they gets used to it."

  "Don't it bother you?" asked Missy. "That other people stares so, I mean."

  "Nay, not once I got past seeing it myself."

  "Daddy seen a boy shoot his eye out once," offered Hannah. "It was up here somewhere on the beach, and he haven't been back up since." She paused, not having noticed the calm of Gideon's face till she watched it ebb away; but then he balanced forward on his toes, leaning closer to the fire, so's only his scarred side showed.

  "What's your daddy's name?" he asked.

  "His name is Luke Osmond. Lynn says he's too scared to come back up the shore ever since, but Daddy's not scared of nothing. He says some things is a man's own damn business."

  "Shh, Hannie," cautioned Missy, and then began to rise, the blanket sipping from her shoulder. "It's time we left. Hannie, will you go get my things?"

  "I'll walk you around the cavern," offered Gideon after Hannah had come back out with the bundle and flashlight, and the bouquet of flowers crushed amongst them.

  "Ooh," exclaimed Missy, lifting out the flowers. And as he dampened the fire with sand and rock, she pressed them against her breasts, trying to straighten them. The cavern didn't look so scary in the light of morning, but even with the sun rising and the gulls and snipes calling out hungrily over breakfast, shadows loomed in that place. And too, the endless shifting of kelp and the braying of the walls sounded as ill-boding as it had the night before.

  "You might come to supper—at our house," said Missy to Gideon as they came out of the cavern on the far side.

  He gazed at her for a second, then draping his hands into the baggy pockets of his trousers, looked back over the kelp-choked waters of the cove. "There's reasons why we travel in the dark," he said quietly. "I need to sit in this place for a while longer. I would hope no one hears of me just yet."

  "We won't tell. Will we, Hannah?"

  Hannah shook her head, edging away from th
e cavern.

  "Hannie," said Gideon, untying the rawhide around his neck, "the people I lived with down on the Labrador give gifts to show their friendship." Removing the rock from the rawhide, he held the medallion towards her. She hesitated, lured by its strange etchings. Then, bowing her head, she allowed him to tie it around her neck, the rawhide cool against her skin, the medallion heavy around her neck. Lifting it, she stared at the etchings.

  "It says it will protect you," said Gideon. "For now, it might be best to wear it inside your sweater."

  Fingering it curiously, she dropped it inside her sweater, and offered him a bit of a smile. Yet it was with a sense of pride that she walked along besides her aunt, feeling the adornment sliding cooly across her chest.

  She looked back many times as her aunt led her along the beach. Each time, he was crouched by the mouth of the cavern, watching after them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  WITHIN A SHORT TIME THEY WERE STRIKING across the wharf towards the far side of the beach. The houses were quiet this early morning, and aside from an old torn scooting along the beach and the gulls and the wind forever rustling the air around them, they were left alone during the rest of the trek up the gorge and through the thicket. The same quiet had fallen upon both Hannah and her aunt, and a comfort it was as opposed to the brooding nature of last evening. And each time Hannah snuck a glance towards her aunt, she couldn't help feeling the glow from the flush on her cheeks, despite the pallor that hung upon her face.

  Missy begged off for a nap after they arrived home, leaving Hannah with strict instructions to stay put and not bother lighting the fire. "Hannie, you won't say nothing, will you?" she asked, halfways up the stairs.

  "I won't," promised Hannah, her hand upon the medallion. "Are you sending me home today?"

  "Tomorrow. Frankie said Clair would be coming for you tomorrow." She flashed her smile of old, and vanished up over the stairs.

  It was towards late in the afternoon when the uncle arrived home with his bucksaw, an assortment of work clothes, a brace of skinned rabbits and some tools. Arising from a long nap, Missy cut up and fried one of the rabbits for supper, and then paced the kitchen restlessly after she had washed the dishes and cleaned the table. Hannah sat waiting to be signalled to slip into a sweater and out the door and wander off down over the yard again, and through the thicket. But there was such discontent within her aunt's pacing this evening that she felt that nothing, not even another trek along the beach and around the cavern to her secret spot, could curb such restlessness. It was her mother again, battling the waters of Chouse.

  The uncle watched too as Missy brushed down the curtains with her hands, complaining of the dust, and running a cloth across the bin each time she passed it. Yet he said nothing, sitting there as he was with his cap forever pulled across the ridge of his brow, and his pipe sending clouds of smoke towering above him. Come late, he lit the lamp and sat back again, watching her from beneath the overhang of his brows, his face so furrowed with brooding it could hold a day's rain.

  "I'm not going nowhere," she snapped at him once when it looked as if he might speak, and tossing a disgruntled look Hannah's way as if she, too, might be the source of her idleness, she hauled the kettle onto the front top of the stove and began heaping spoonfuls of cocoa into a cup. Making one for each of them, and with a final scowl at the uncle, she headed for the stairwell.

  Once they were into their nightdresses and propped upon their pillows, she calmed a little, sipping her cocoa. Still, she wanted no chatter on this evening. And when finally they went to sleep, the blankets were twisted and turned into knots around both of them, so uncomfortable and long did they lie, waiting for sleep.

  It was scarcely dawn when Hannah was startled awake. She sat up as Missy began thrashing wildly, singing out, "The bluebells, the bluebells. Stop them—ohh, stop!" And then she was sitting upright, her eyes staring into Hannah's with fright.

  "Are you going to die?" cried Hannah.

  "I was dreaming," she gasped, staring wide-eyed around the room.

  "The bluebells were ringing?"

  "Yes—no—I was just dreaming."

  "But somebody dies when they rings—"

  "I was dreaming, Hannie!"

  "But I heard them too."

  "Hush now, silly, it's the wind—listen." And they listened to the wind, always the wind, rustling the grass, bushes, trees and no doubt the bluebells sleeping way down beneath their bedroom window. They lay back, sleeping fitfully, their ears pinned awake.

  Morning found Hannah sitting moodily at the table, toying with a pencil and scribbler as her aunt veered betwixt anxious looks at the uncle and absent, dreamy looks at the mop, broom or dusting rag she held in her hands.

  "You'd think I was a cripple the way you been doing for me this morning," Sim grumbled once as she poured him his third cup of tea and straightened his shirt collar for the fourth or fifth time.

  "You've not been looking well."

  "You've always been saying that."

  "Ohh, you're such a grump," she sighed, smacking the peak of his cap. "Wonder how it would sound if you should laugh. Hey, Hannie?"

  Hannah shrugged, as uninterested in the uncle as he was in her, and wandered outside, hoping to lure her aunt as well. But no matter how many times she drummed on the stoop or poked her head inside the door, looking like an expectant pup, Missy pretended not to notice, pacing as she was, and making yet more tea for the uncle. And worse, that dewy look was growing stronger, as if the tea towel she kept fondling was a thing of wonder.

  Dinner came around. After feeding them a good scoff of stewed beans and bread, Missy readied the few garments of clothes Hannah had brought with her, and laid the bag on the table for when it was time to go. Bidding Hannah to stay put, she darted up the stairs, and when next she emerged, both the uncle and Hannah gaped at the hair released from its ponytail and brushed to a sheen around her shoulders, and a sky blue dress that bared her arms from the elbows down and pleated nicely around her swollen belly.

  "Get ready, it's time to go," she said, bustling forward as Hannah reached out, fingering the cotton of her dress.

  "Where you going?" asked the uncle, as she slipped her feet into a pair of shoes.

  "Walking Hannah down to meet Clair. Got your boots on, Hannie?"

  "You don't know yet that she's here," said the uncle.

  "There's a boat docking. I seen it from the window. It'd be her."

  "You've no need to go—I'll walk her," said the uncle, shoving back his chair.

  "She's big enough to walk herself, come to that," chided Missy. "Besides, I'm capable of taking a walk—it's birthing I'll soon be doing, not dying, and given there's going to be a youngster bawling out in these rooms soon enough, it's time everyone around here learned that. Come, Hannah." And taking Hannah's bag off the table, she marched out the door, her step fraught with purpose.

  "But you don't go out during the day," Hannah called out, scurrying after her.

  "It's a nice day to start, don't you think?" she answered, her tone almost gay. And indeed it was, thought Hannah, liking this new vigour and breaking into a skip besides her aunt. The morning breeze had risen with the sun, adding lustre to the brightness of the day, and perking the steps of the youngsters darting about the road, shrieking to one another, or giving chase to a cat or dog prowling underfoot. Owing to Sunday, there was no one about on the wharf, only the boat Missy had seen from her room window, just putting ashore.

  "My, you're out and at it today," called out Alma from her stoop as they walked by.

  Missy waved, returning some such civility, her hair shining like gold in the noonday sun and giving vent to a dream within Hannah that her own dark locks might grow and ripple down her back and perhaps shine like coal beneath a miner's lamp someday. The wind gusted harder as they neared the wharf, and upon seeing Clair climbing up the ladder from her uncle Nate's boat, Missy halted her step, turning to Hannah.

  "You're getting to be a big g
irl, Hannie," she said quietly, "and someday, no matter what happens with Clair and me, you can come visit me on your own, no matter what anybody says. You remember that."

  "I'll come, Aunt Missy—"

  "And I want you to run off now, after Clair gets here, because I'd like to have a few words with her—alone. So, mind you does that?"

  "I will."

  "And don't go running back, no matter what you hears, all right? And Hannie," she said, "do you remember what Gideon said—about a name being strong? Well, it's whoever's wearing the name that makes it strong, and if my baby's a girl, I'm going to call her Hannah, after you, because you're the strongest little woman I know." As Hannah clasped her arms around her aunt's neck, Missy exclaimed, "Ohh, listen now, promise you'll say nothing of Gideon?"

  "I promise."

  "Swear," she said, pulling Hannah's arms from around her neck, "for Clair might think bad things about him and not let you come back again."

  "I'll never tell," Hannah whispered fiercely.

  "And you're not to let anyone see the medallion."

  "Not even Daddy."

  "Because it's a friendship token, and it holds a power, friendship tokens do, so mind you never tattles, because tattling is the worst."

  "I won't ever tattle, I promise."

  "And don't worry none about me and Clair; everything's going to be fine—someday. All right? All right," she whispered as Hannah nodded, and taking hold of her hand, she led her towards Clair climbing onto the wharf.

  "You look so well," Clair called out, slightly breathless as she ran towards them, her own dark curls escaping from her scarf and dancing around her face in the breeze. Perhaps because her mother looked so dear at that moment, smiling as she hurried towards them, a surge of affection broadened Hannah's heart. And she might've skipped to meet her, surprising them both with the abandon of a huge hug, had not the tightening of her aunt's hand held her back. "Was she good, Missy?" Clair asked, smoothing a lock of hair behind Hannah's ear.