Ann-Marie MacDonald - Fall on Your Knees

There’s nothing much to see — a few rotting ribs of wood and pit props, a rusted shovel. Frances carries Lily forward. It gets darker. The air is musty. They follow a bend in the tunnel and lose sight of the light at the entrance. Frances walks on slowly into the dank and shapeless dark.

Lily asks quietly, “What if we get lost?”

“We won’t. Ambrose will find us.”

Lily whimpers.

“He loves you, Lily, don’t be afraid.”

“I want to go home.”

“We are home. We’re in his home.”

Frances stops and puts Lily down. Her fingers feel for the snap on her Girl Guide pouch. She withdraws a cigarette, and strikes a match against her belt buckle. The tongue of fire illuminates: a pool of still water inches from their feet, dear God, how deep is it? And over there, against the wall — Lily screams. Frances lights her cigarette and blows out the match.

“There’s someone here, Frances.” Lily’s voice is shaking.

“I know.”

“He’s standing over there. On the other side of the water.”

Frances takes a big puff. “What’s he look like?”

“He’s got overalls on. And a pick. And a peaked cap.”

“Is there a lamp on his cap?”

“Yes. The teapot kind.”

“He must have been dead quite a while.”

Frances blows invisible smoke rings.

“Frances” — Lily’s fear is spilling over.

“It’s not Ambrose, Lily. It’s a dead miner.”

Frances lights another match: the pool, the seeping wall — Lily cries out again as the flame disappears.

“It’s not a miner, Frances.”

“What is it?”

“He’s got a mask on.”

“A Hallowe’en mask?”

“A gas mask. He’s got a rifle with a bayonet on the end.”

“A dead soldier.”

Frances lights another match: the black water, stones and earthen walls —

“He’s gone,” says Lily.

“Ambrose took him away ’cause he knew you were scared. Baby. Brownie baby.”

“Ambrose isn’t here.”

“Yes he is.”

“Where?”

Frances drops her cigarette and it sizzles against the unseen pool.

“In there.”

Lily looks down, dizzy from the dark. “Angels live in heaven.”

“They live wherever the hell they want.”

“I’m telling. You smoked and swore.”

“Go ahead and tattle. Ambrose and I will still look after you no matter what.”

“There’s no such thing as Ambrose.”

“At night he dives down in this pool and swims in an underground river till it comes out at the surface and turns into our creek. He takes a breath and swims in the shallow water, long and white, all the way till he gets to our place. Then he climbs out over the top of the bank and slowly walks, dripping, across our yard and opens the kitchen door. He walks past the oven. He walks into the hall past the front room. He walks up the stairs without a sound, and past the attic door. He comes into the room where you’re asleep. He stands at the foot of the bed and looks down at you. He has red hair.

“And then he leaves. But he can’t swim back. He has to move the rock in the garden and go down a tunnel that’s too small for him now, until he gets to the sad and lonely mine. He walks for miles in his bare feet past all the quiet soldiers and miners resting against the walls. And every time he makes the journey back to the pool, his heart breaks. So you see how much he loves you, Lily, to make such a trip night after night.”

Silence. Lily pees her pants.

Frances’s footsteps trot away and around the bend until Lily can’t hear them any more. Her Brownie stockings are soaked. She passes out.

When Frances doesn’t hear Lily cry or holler, she runs back through the darkness and lights another match. Oh my God, “Lily!” But Lily lies motionless, dead of a heart attack at ten, it could happen, “Lily!” Frances shakes her, splashes water on her face, and she wakes up. Frances piggy-backs her out of the mine and slides half the way down the hill in stones and dirt. When they get to the bottom, she props Lily against a mossy tree and catches her breath, hands on her knees.

Lily opens her eyes. “Frances, I peed.”

“That’s okay, we’ll go straight home and change, come on.”

Lily stays sitting. “Frances. What if Ambrose is the Devil?”

“He’s not the Devil. I know who the Devil is and it isn’t Ambrose.”

“Who’s the Devil?”

Frances crouches down as if she were talking to Trixie. “That’s something I’ll never tell you, Lily, no matter how old you get to be, because the Devil is shy. It makes him angry when someone recognizes him, so once they do the Devil gets after them. And I don’t want the Devil to get after you.”

“Is the Devil after you?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus can beat the Devil.”

“If God wants.”

“God is against the Devil.”

“God made the Devil.”

“Why?”

“For fun.”

“No, to test us.”

“If you know, why are you asking me?”

“Daddy says there’s no such thing as the Devil, it’s just an idea.”

“The Devil lives with us.”

“No he doesn’t.”

“You see the Devil every day. The Devil hugs you and eats right next to you.”

“Daddy’s not the Devil.”

“I never said he was….”

Frances has got a dry look, tinder in the eye; her voice is a stack of hay heating up at the centre, her mouth a stitched line. “I’m the Devil.”

This is the moment Lily stops being afraid of anything Frances could ever say or do again. Stops being afraid of anything at all. She reaches out and takes Frances’s hand. The white hand that always smells of small wildflowers, lily of the valley. The hand that has always done up Lily’s buttons and laces, and produced wondrous objects. She holds Frances’s hand and tells her, “It’s okay, Frances.”

Frances’s bruised face crumples and her forehead drops to her knees knocking her Girl Guide beret askew. Her stick arms encircle her legs and she cries. Lily strokes the sinewy back while Frances mumbles something over and over.

Years later, Frances remembers that she was saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Lily, I’m sorry.”

But memory plays tricks. Memory is another word for story, and nothing is more unreliable.

While Frances and Lily were at the old French mine, Mercedes was home in the coal cellar keeping her promise to God.

“Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” Penance has not only eased her soul, it has been the occasion for Our Lady to put the idea into Mercedes’ mind of a Lourdes fund for Lily. Why didn’t I think of it before? But Mercedes knows the answer. She wasn’t worthy to receive the inspiration until she acknowledged her sins and humbly begged God’s forgiveness.

Naturally Mercedes has made a full confession: “Father forgive me, for I have sinned…. I wished my lame sister dead of a fall, I grieved my poor father, I allowed my favourite sister to suffer for my sin. I have a favourite sister.” She has been assigned a standard penance of prayers, but she has devised an additional private penance here in the cellar.

Although she has told no one of her penance, she has told Daddy and Frances about the Lourdes fund so that they may contribute, and she has told Lily so that Lily may have hope. There is nearly two dollars in the cocoa tin already and it’s only been a week. At this rate, Lily will be able to go to Lourdes when she’s fourteen. That’s a good age for a cure. The brink of womanhood. Think how perfectly lovely Lily would be without her affliction.