Boy on the Edge (19 page)

Henry got a present from his mother: a pair of fine leather gloves and five pairs of socks. Henry tried the gloves on and thought perhaps he would use them when he was pushing the wheelbarrow.

Mark only got a card from his aunt, who was trying to make up for his father’s negligence. There was cash in the card for him to buy something nice with. Mark laughed and asked where on earth he was going to buy anything. But the reverend promised that as soon as the roads were clear he would take Mark to a shop in the village.

Ollie got a tiny farm from his aging grandparents, with little animals and a tractor. He disappeared into his game on the living-room floor, and everyone else settled down in their seats. Emily continued to play the piano, and Oswald read a book. Henry noticed that John just sat with his tool kit in his lap, tapping his fingers on the wooden box.

Before Henry went to bed he gave the cows an extra portion of hay for a Christmas treat. He felt good after the meal with the gravy and the caramel potatoes and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

But he hadn’t slept for long when the door to his room was flung open so hard it hit the wall with a loud bang. He sat up with his heart thumping in his chest, but the room was dark. Then suddenly Mark appeared by his bedside, his face pale in the moonlight, his eyes big as saucers.

“Help me! Come quickly!” he gasped, and tore at Henry’s arm, dragging him out of bed.

Henry followed Mark to the dormitory where he and John slept. Henry had never been in there before. All around the room were empty bunk beds where Henry guessed the little ones had slept. But now they were like graves inside a murky tomb, except where John sat, hunched forward. The wind howled over the roof. Henry felt his heart drumming loudly in his ears and he took a deep breath.

The lamp by John’s bed cast an arc of light on the floorboards. John had a knife in his hand and was staring into the darkness; blood was dripping from his wrist, forming a dark pool on the wooden floorboards.

It took Henry a moment to realize what had happened. Mark edged slowly toward John, and Henry followed.

John sniffed. He seemed to be looking at them from far away.

“Who are you?”

Mark stood still for a while, but Henry tried to figure out how they could stop him from hurting himself more. If they were careful they might be able to take the knife from him.

“It’s me. Mark. And Henry is here too. Don’t be afraid,” Mark whispered.

“They wanted me to kill myself,” John whispered, sobbing. “My parents, I mean. Why didn’t they take me home for Christmas? Why did they send me these knives? I will go to hell for this,” he said with trembling lips as he looked at the bleeding wound on his wrist. “I don’t want to go to hell! Please, help me, please.” His voice broke and tears flowed down his cheeks.

“You’ll be all right,” Mark whispered.

He sat down beside John and carefully placed his hand on the knife.

John stared at the knife for a long moment before releasing his hold. The blood gushed out of the wound on his other wrist.

Mark took the knife gently from his hand then quickly cut a strip off his T-shirt. He took the wounded arm in his hand and wrapped the strip tightly around John’s bleeding wrist.

John looked at him, his troubled eyes searching Mark’s face for an answer or an explanation of some kind. Mark tried to smile.

“We are your friends,” he whispered. “Henry and I. And we’re going away from here soon, I promise you. All three of us. So don’t you worry about a thing.”

A shy, trusting smile appeared on John’s lips. Tears ran from his eyes and his breath trembled.

“Will you stay with me?” he pleaded.

“I will,” Mark replied.

John fumbled for Mark’s hand and lay back. Then he sighed, closed his eyes, and fell asleep in an instant.

Mark sat on the bed for a long time, holding the bandage tightly on John’s wounded arm while the weather pounded the roof, the beams creaked, and the wind howled.

Henry sat on the other bed and waited.

“Will he be all right?” he whispered.

“He has to be,” Mark said. “We just have to take good care of him, you and I. As soon as we can, we must move the boat to the cliffs.”

“As soon as winter is through, we’re gone,” he whispered.

Looking at John sleeping, Henry wondered if it was such a good idea anymore. John was desperate enough to attempt suicide, and so Mark seemed more determined than ever to save his friend. To save him from Jesus, and the reverend, from his parents, from his criminal record, and this cold country that offered no hope for the future, but only more trouble.

Back in his own room, Henry wondered what it was that Mark wanted to escape from so badly. Was it just the farm? It wasn’t really so bad here. Or was it something else? Henry knew one thing for certain, for it had been the story of his life; nobody could escape from himself. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Mark had probably not learned that lesson.

The first two months of the New Year, as always, were utter darkness. Snow covered everything, and it was as if time had come to a full stop. There were no days, only eternal night. Henry woke up in darkness and went to bed in darkness and between that, nothing happened.

Every morning the snow had once again covered the tracks he trod between the cowshed and the house, so when he finally reached the farmhouse, he was fuming inside and wanted to scream at everyone.

Ollie had the flu and so the breakfast table was quiet. Emily stayed by Ollie’s bedside and Henry milked alone. Henry found himself hearing Ollie’s voice every time the shovel scraped the canal or when the wind pounded the roof. Words here and there, sometimes whole sentences, began to reverberate in his head, in that ringing clear voice, reading a story or chanting an ancient poem.

Henry put on the leather gloves from his mom, fought his way through a snowdrift with the wheelbarrow full of steaming shit, and emptied it onto the frozen dung heap.

Sometimes, while he worked, Henry thought about what Reverend Oswald had said about agricultural college, so long ago. Although it was almost unbelievable that it would ever happen, he allowed himself the luxury of dreaming.

He imagined a beautiful countryside with green fields as far as the eye could see and no lava fields, a cowshed full of happy fat cows, and a brand-new dairy machine. Maybe even horses too.

But it was just a dream; he knew that. Emily did not force him to read, and he did not want to, so it would all come to nothing. He would never be allowed into college. Why on earth did farmers have to read anyway? Farmers worked with their hands and took care of their animals. Books didn’t have anything to do with that.

Henry guessed he would stay here for the rest of his life, unless he ran away with Mark and John. He’d been excited about the idea, though mostly he’d been excited about Mark becoming his friend. But all they ever talked of was the escape plan and how Mark imagined life in Spain. Mark never asked Henry about how
he
felt about it, what
his
dreams were. And as the weeks went by, Henry found himself being more of a listener than a participant. He was the audience that Mark needed to think out loud to, to paint his dream for so he could see it more clearly himself.

Mark was worried about John, who had been in bed since Christmas. Emily had asked the doctor to have a look at him. Mark told John to say that he had cut himself in the smithy. Whether the doctor believed it or not, he realized that John was depressed, so he prescribed some pills for him.

Finally, thanks to Mark’s encouragement, John got out of bed and began to fiddle about with wood in the smithy again. Now he sat there every day carving out his chess pieces.

“The sooner I get him away from here, the better,” Mark said.

Henry sat by Mark’s side but said nothing. In his mind he played with the idea that if John and Mark went to Spain, he would probably be allowed to drive the tractor next summer. He would mow the fields on his own and fill up the barn with fresh hay. And perhaps he would teach Ollie to milk the cows, herd them to pasture, and take care of them since he would be far too busy himself. Thinking of that made him feel better. But at the same time he felt guilty because Mark relied on him for the escape plan.

Every time they talked, Henry couldn’t help thinking how much he would miss the farm, the cows, Emily and Ollie, maybe even the reverend. What would he do in Spain, anyway? But he dared not say anything to Mark. Perhaps they weren’t real friends after all. You should be able to say anything to a friend. Maybe they were just talking because Mark needed Henry’s friendship even more than Henry needed Mark’s. Mark needed someone to help him escape to that faraway place where dreams came true. But Henry knew that his dreams were right here, waiting for him in the summer breeze.

The rain showers arrived from the ocean and the snow melted into the lava. One day a green knoll of moss appeared from under the snow and the southern winds rounded up the fluffy clouds and made them gallop across the sky.

The promise of spring laughed in a brook and whispered in the yellow grass at the swamp. It shook the ptarmigan in flight with a playful gust of wind, which made it spring into the air, brown-breasted and white-winged.

Then the birds arrived at the sea cliffs.

The wind was warm and the foxes’ cackles echoed across the lava field. The ocean was wild with joy. The surf foamed like mad around the cliffs, gushing up from crevices and clefts in high fountains that collapsed on the rocks with loud smacks.

Now that spring had arrived, Mark was tackling the escape plan with new energy. He was eager for a chance to move the boat to the cliffs, but they couldn’t do that in broad daylight unless the reverend and Emily went away. But they could sneak down to the sea cliffs and try out Henry’s idea with the iron bar and the wheel with the long steel cable. They carried the wheel out of the smithy between them and hid it behind the barn. After dinner one night they carried it down Spine Break Path, past the Gallows, and continued all the way to the edge of the cliffs above Shipwreck Bay. The iron bar fit perfectly into the square hole in the middle of the wheel.

The end of the cable should obviously be fastened to the hook on the stern of the boat. That way one person could lower the boat down the cliffs, turning the wheel slowly, while another held on to the chain, making sure the boat didn’t get stuck on the way down. It was simple, once they had figured it out.

But they still had to wait for a chance to carry the boat out to the cliffs to test this properly. Meanwhile Mark decided it was time to let John in on the plan.

When Henry got to the smithy, John sat by the table with his chess pieces in front of him. He was explaining to Mark that the white pieces were Christ the King and Queen Mary, his mother. There were archangels instead of bishops, knights, and castles, and the pawns were all apostles. The King of Darkness and the Queen of Lust made up the black team, with all kinds of demons and goblins as their bishops, knights, and pawns.

“Soon we’ll be able to play chess, Mark,” John said with a smile. “It’ll be a great battle when these two meet,” he added, raising a half-finished Christ and a fully-fledged King of Darkness.

Mark took a piece in his hand and examined it.

“It looks good,” he said.

“That’s Andrew the apostle,” John explained. “He’s the brother of Peter,” he added, pointing at another figure holding a key.

“What’s Andrew holding?” Mark asked.

“Oh, it’s supposed to be a net,” John said, frowning. “But it’s not very clear.”

“Oh, right. He was a sailor, wasn’t he?” Mark asked.

“A fisherman,” John replied. “The Savior’s fisherman.”

“Must be fun being a fisherman, don’t you think?” Mark said. “Sailing the ocean on a little boat? Would you like that?”

“Yeah, but we don’t have a boat,” John replied.

“But what if we had one?” Mark continued. “Then we could go fishing.”

John looked down and chipped a tiny fragment off Christ’s shoulder with his knife.

“Yes, but we can’t be fishermen if we don’t have a boat,” he mumbled, and seemed to become immersed in his work again.

Mark watched him for a moment.

Then he walked toward the wall, moved the barrels away, and rolled them across the floor. John looked up slowly, watching his friend with surprise.

“I tell you, brother,” Mark said, “the Lord will provide.”

Grabbing the corner of the sailcloth, Mark pulled it away in one swift movement, causing dust to scatter in the air around him.

John put Christ down on the table and stood up, gawking at the rowboat. The dust twisting and turning in the air, catching the light from the bright sunbeams pouring through the window, caused the boat to glow in a heavenly light.

“It’s a sign,” he whispered.

He walked toward the boat, touching it gently, as if he were afraid it would disappear as easily as it had appeared if he weren’t careful. But it was a real boat, a real fisherman’s boat. John knelt beside it, stroking it hard as if testing its strength, with a big smile on his face.