Tim Wynne-Jones: The Boy in the Burning House

He looked at her like a zombie.

“Do what?”

“Find out,” she said. “About…you know, Tuffy, Tabor, Laverne — anything.”

It was no use arguing with her.

“Whatever you say,” he replied. If he sounded less than convincing, she didn’t try to stop him from leaving.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” she said. “And about… you know… It.”

“What?” he said. He had jumped over to the other side of Incognito Creek. It wasn’t much but it put something between them. When he turned, she seemed almost invisible, as if she had gathered up dusk all around her like a cape. As if she was just a part of the forest, a part of the coming night.

“About you losing your father,” she said. “I know what it’s like.”

He looked at her. “No, you don’t. You know what it’s like losing your father.”

He didn’t turn around again when she called after him.

“It’s worse for me,” she shouted. “I’ve got a new one who wants to kill me.”

The wind picked up just as Jim opened the gate from the cornfield. He had to fight to rope the gate closed again. The rope was fraying badly; he’d need to replace it. There was so much to do.

He stopped in his tracks. He had left the shovel at the dam. He stamped his foot like a three-year-old. He swore.

“You don’t leave a tool out in the rain, Jimbo, unless you never plan on using it again.”

He turned to go and retrieve it. But he couldn’t. For all he knew, Ruth Rose was still out there prowling around, her teeth bared, worse than any wild dog with wildly impossible things pouring out of her black lips. She was a witch.

He heard the screen of the kitchen door slam back hard against the house, caught by the wind. He could just make out the form of his mother outlined in the doorway, the warm light of the kitchen behind her spilling out into the cool. Then she stepped out of his line of vision; the shrubbery and garden shed came between them.

Jim headed through the apple orchard until he caught a glimpse of her again. She was standing on the porch, talking to someone. A man. He was standing beyond the light of the doorway. Jim hurried, uneasy.

Out from behind the protective ranks of corn, the wind made him shiver, made him pull his open jacket closed around him. The zipper was broken. He hadn’t even bothered showing it to his mom. When was she going to find time to fix it?

He got close enough that he could hear snatches of conversation from the porch. His mom was laughing. Now she was shaking the man’s hand. Now the man stepped back up the steps to give her a hug. Big dark arms closed around her. She hugged him back.

Jim was at the garden shed now. He leaned against it, out of sight, watching.

It was okay. The man was going. His mother was already heading back inside.

Jim waited. The man was heading towards the front yard where his van was sitting, gleamy black under the yard light. Jim looked that way for the first time.

He knew the van, knew the scripture that was quoted in white scrolled letters on the side panels. The only thing he could read from where he was standing was what was written on the plastic wind foil across the front of the hood. “I Am The Lord Thy Saviour.”

It was the car people around town called the Godmobile. Father Fisher’s car.

His mom saw him before she shut the door. She waited to herd him inside with a warm hug. There were tears in her eyes.

“What did he want?” Jim asked.

His mother was mopping up a tear with the corner of her apron, but there was a smile on her face.

“He was looking for his daughter,” she said as she cleared the kitchen table of tea things.

Jim hung up his coat, kicked off his boots, stopped himself from blurting out anything.

“Apparently she roams. Lettie Kitchen — you know Lettie down on the Glenshee Road, the one who makes the horrible green Jello with miniature marshmallows for every church social — she phoned Father to let him know she’d seen the girl on the tracks heading up this way.”

Snoot was curled up on the rocker by the wood-stove. Jim picked her up and held her against his face. She was full of woodstove warmth. Jim took the seat and rocked a bit. It was strange to hear his mother so chatty. Obviously, Father Fisher’s visit hadn’t just been about Ruth Rose.

She was filling the soup tureen. Jim should have been helping but the stove and the kitten held him captive.

“The girl’s quite a problem for them, I gather. Poor Nancy.”

Nancy was Mrs. Fisher. Ruth Rose’s mother. She was the kind of person you said “poor Nancy” about. She was in a wheelchair, but that wasn’t the reason. She had lost an unborn child in the car crash that had crippled her and killed her husband. But that wasn’t the reason, either. She seemed helpless in some other way, almost haunted. She was sweet, though. Everybody at the Church of the Blessed Transfiguration liked her a lot, remarked about what a saintly soul she was.

Iris Hawkins carried the tureen to the table. She glanced at Jim and smiled to see him with the kitten on his lap. Then she returned to the counter for bread and butter. Reluctantly, Jim got up and washed his hands at the kitchen sink.

They sat down. Holding his hand, bowing her head and closing her eyes, his mother said grace. Jim didn’t bow his head or close his eyes. As far as he was concerned, there was no God to thank for anything.

Jim had filled the sky with prayers — stood out in the middle of the field on clear days so that no roof, no trees, no clouds could stop his prayers from reaching the ear of the Maker. He had promised the Almighty elaborate penance, a life dedicated to helping the poor — whatever God ordained. But God had done nothing.

So now, Jim sat in respectful silence. The respect was for his mother.

His mother ladled rich corn and potato chowder into his bowl. He cut thick slices of bread, poured them each a glass of water. There was still a smile playing around the edge of his mother’s face. She caught him looking at her and grinned.

“What’s up?” he asked, taking a bowl of soup.

She took a deep, wobbly breath. “The church…” she said, then stopped to compose herself. “The church has decided — well, almost, anyway — to assume our mortgage.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that if everything goes according to plan, they’re going to pay the bank the money we had to borrow this year, and we’ll pay back the church at a lower interest rate and with much better terms. Take as long as we want, was the way Father put it.” Her voice was breaking with emotion.

When Jim didn’t reply, his mother added, “It’s a real blessing, Jim.”

He nodded and ate some soup. He knew they had money problems. It was the reason his mother had taken the job at the soap factory. He wondered if this meant she could stop now. He didn’t ask, didn’t want to seem too eager about it in case she thought her working bothered him.

“So he didn’t just come out looking for his daughter?” he said.

“Oh, he was looking for her, all right. He had wanted to tell us about the mortgage business but he hadn’t wanted to mention it until it was in the bag.”

“And it’s in the bag?”

“Pretty much,” said his mother, crossing her fingers. “We’re lucky, Jim, to have such a caring community.” She paused with a spoonful of soup halfway to her mouth as if she were going to say something else. Something about him going to church. But she changed her mind.

Jim kept his thoughts to himself. They ate in silence for a moment. There was just the sound of spoon against bowl, the clicking that came from the wood-stove when it was cranking out the heat, and occasionally the sound of the wind blustering outside, shaking the trees, whipping around the tarp that covered the firewood.