Being a practical boy from a hard working and down to earth Catholic family, he told no one about the misty figure in the white cape who'd waved to him from the bell tower then floated away like smoke. Boys who daydreamed during chores were likely to end up making a trip to the woodshed. Boys who saw things that weren't there were likely not to sit for a week. So he rubbed his eyes and dug his heels into the old plow horse's sides and kept riding. He didn't forget her but he kept riding and was careful not to look back. Two days later, planting tomatoes in the vestry garden just below the bell tower, the village priest - a relatively young man with no history of cardiac problems - keeled over with a heart attack and was dead before he hit the dirt.
Don't fidget! Frenchy's mother whispered testily to him during the funeral mass, Show some respect!
He thought about telling her then. As unlikely as it seemed, he'd begun to wonder if the two events might not be related in some mysterious, catholic way but her face was stern and impatient, careworn and tired. Life on a salt water farm had taken its toll on her kindness. Thinking she was burdened enough, he kept silent.
Just a week shy of his eleventh birthday, he saw her again, this time hovering among the pilings of the old breakwater. He could see straight through her, he realized, like a fine, sheer curtain. She was vignetted by mist, her cape swirling and her hair floating like something out of a fairy tale. When he took a hesitant step toward her, she dissolved and drifted away but that night a fierce storm blew through, lightning struck the radar antenna tower and sent it crashing through the roof of the old guard shack, killing the night watchman and starting a fire that burned clear through til morning. When it was time for the funeral mass, Frenchy hid in the woodshed and pretended not to hear his mother calling.
Emile! Her voice carried on the crisp morning air, Come at once!
He covered his ears, shut his eyes and stayed put. He didn't understand why but he felt responsible. He was afraid to go to mass, afraid that the Angel of Death might follow.
His mother, Marguerite, fell ill not long after he turned thirteen and for several weeks over the course of an uneasy spring, he watched and waited for the vision, sure he would see her one day looking in a window or curled around the chimney. He didn't expect her at his mother's bedside and when he saw her there, he flew at her in a helpless rage. She shook her head at him, smiled with great sadness and broke apart. Her eyes were kind, he thought, but he would not have her in this house. She vanished like hot breath on a winter day and his mother recovered.
After that, vaguely convinced that he owed her a life, he saw her more and more often. She might be idly sitting on the edge of the well in the bright morning sunshine or picking wildflowers on Overcove Road. Once she was wading in the lily pond, her cape gathered up in her delicate hands but leaving no ripples in the water, he noticed. Once he saw her perched in the overhanging branches of a tree high above the old post office. He got used to her after a fashion even though a death most always followed a sighting and it worried him fiercely that he'd never told about her. When he saw her floating alongside the ferry on a warm summer afternoon, he actually tried to chase her off but she just laughed and fell back out of reach. He watched her ride the whitecaps all the way across, mermaid-like but weightless and insubstantial.
Whatcha lookin' at, boy? one of the ferrymen wanted to know but he just shrugged. The longer he kept his secret, the easier it became. But just a day or so later, the curious ferryman coughed up one blood clot while another went directly to his brain. He survived, but his days of ferrying were over and a few short months later while sitting glassy-eyed in the front porch rocker, his heart gave a sigh and a shudder and stopped. By then, Frenchy had come to understand that he wasn't a cause so much as a witness and he sat quietly at the funeral, no fidgeting. He'd learned to be respectful of things he didn't comprehend, learned to be still and silent in the presence of death.
When he finally screwed up the courage to talk to Father John's replacement - after he was comfortably and conventionally married with children of his own and a reputation for being rock steady - he approached the priest and told him about the ghost. Father Andrew listened, smoking his pipe and rocking thoughtfully, now and then giving him an encouraging smile but offering little except the mysteries of God and the essential nature of faith. When Frenchy asked if he believed in ghosts, the young priest sighed.
Let's say, Emile, he said finally, that I don't disbelieve. Miracles require an open mind.
But why me, Father? Frenchy persisted.
Who can tell, Emile, the priest replied, We are all chosen to witness in our own way. If God chose to reveal His plans, there would be no need of faith, my son. We aren't meant to understand.
If you say so, Father, Frenchy said without much conviction.
He'd been hoping for a more definitive answer but settled for being believed. He trudged homeward, deciding at the last moment to stop in and see Marguerite, now in her 90's with her health beginning to fail. Her roses needed rain, he thought as he walked up the path, and the grass needed a good cutting. Distracted and making a mental list for the weekend, he didn't see the ghost until he knocked on Marguerite's door and by then her work was done and she was slipping through the closed window. He caught only a glimpse of her white cape as it melted through the glass and faded into the late afternoon air. There would be no fight this time, he sensed, he was too late and after he'd made all the necessary calls and watched as Marguerite was carried away, he drew all the curtains, shut up the house, and started home again. He wondered, in a distant and abstract sort of way, if now his debt was paid.
Don't fidget! he found himself whispering sharply to his six year old a few days later at the graveside. It was a gray-ish day with rainclouds moving ever nearer and a gentle mist falling over the mourners.
But Daddy, the little boy whispered back, She doesn't have an umbrella and she's getting wet.
Who? Frenchy asked more impatiently than he'd liked.
The lady in the bell tower, the child persisted, The one who can fly. The one I saw at Nana's.
Startled, he looked upward but there was only gray sky, low clouds, light rain. A shaft of weak sunlight shone on the old tower and it stood out against the threatening weather like a beacon, almost glowing against the darkening sky. Though he saw no sign of the ghost, Frenchy felt a chill as he picked up his little boy and heard the first shovelfuls of dirt hit the wooden coffin.
She doesn't mind the rain, he told the boy quietly.
She lives on the other side of the rainbow, the six year old said confidently, I think she's an angel.
Frenchy hugged the child and nodded. I think so too, he said and finally felt a little more at peace.
Perhaps some debts aren't as much paid as they're at least partially forgiven, passed on to younger, stronger shoulders with no fear of ghosts. Perhaps some debts are gifts in disguise, meant for children and those who believe in angels.
Those who don't believe in magic will never find it ~ Roald Dahl
No comments:
Post a Comment