Kit's Law (18 page)

“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 feeling 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 kidnapped 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.”

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Sure you can. Play with her. That’s what I do, I play with her. Keep remembering she’s a kid. She only wants to play.”

Play. The word sounded as foreign as Latin. I gave a short laugh.

“I don’t ever remember playin’. Leastways, not with someone. Just Pirate.”

“Then don’t you think it’s time you started having more fun?”

I gave a half-hearted nod, trying to still my snivelling.

“C’mon, then,” he cajoled, reaching out and tickling my ribs. “Let’s start having fun—me, you and Josie. Before you know it, you’ll be wrestling her around the chopping block, and tying her arms and legs in knots, and she’ll be chasing after you more than she chases after me and won’t ever want to leave home again, she’ll be having too much fun.”

“God help me,” I murmured, brushing away his hands, but I couldn’t help smiling. Sid always made things sound right, and suddenly the threat of Shine wasn’t so serious.

“Come on. Let’s walk.” Pulling me to my feet, he held my hand and we started stepping stones down the gully. Soon, we were leaping this way and that, picking up speed the further we went, till we were running and laughing all the ways down to the beach.

“Now then,” Sid said breathlessly, as we walked along the shore, “if you were crying because Shine’s come back, were you laughing because I’ve come back?”

“Might be,” I replied.

“Might be?”

“Might be that I knew you’d be back.”

“Yeah? And how’d you know that?”

“Because the reverend told you not to come back,” I said, skipping a little ahead of him.

“Yep, that’s the reason, sir, right there.” He ran up behind me and, catching hold of my waist, lifted me up and pretended to throw me into the water. I screamed and struggled to get away, but he held me tighter, the dimple besides his mouth deepening as he grinned down at me.