Finton Moon by Gerard Collins Page B

covered his hot groin and a sick, smelly feeling of guilt filled his head. Jesus looked down on him with sorrowful eyes that followed him all the way to the bathroom at the end of the hall.
    A light was on in the kitchen. He could hear murmuring—the whispered words: “…not sure what to do.” That was his father. The second, more hostile voice belonged to his mother. Hand pressed to his cold, sticky groin, he leaned forward and strained to hear.
    â€œWe’re all better off,” his mother said. “Some things are better kept to yourself.”
    His father sighed, followed by a scrape of the chair across canvas. “Sometimes, I don’t even know what’s right anymore. I mean what if—”
    â€œJust stop it, Tom. Forget about it. That’s what’s right.”
    â€œRight for who?”
    There was a pause before his mother spoke. “It never gets easy, does it?”
    He couldn’t hear what she said after that, for his mother had lowered her voice. But his father’s response was, “He’s all right. He’s a Moon, after all.”
    Finton felt his nose running and had to swipe it with his sleeve, but he still resisted the urge to run to the bathroom. The voices hushed, as if the speakers had heard something. “I wonder how much he knows,” Elsie said, then she rose from her chair, her shadow shifting towards his hiding spot behind the chimney. As his mother’s chair was scuffed aside, Finton slipped into the bathroom and locked the door behind him. After cleaning himself with a wet face cloth, which he buried in the hamper, he climbed back in bed, where the eyes of Jesus still judged him.
    It was a long time before he fell back to sleep.

The Devil’s Greatest Trick

    The next day, he stood at the roadside, gazing across the gate at the newly snow-brushed landscape. A rotted, white picket fence halfheartedly protected the property, most of its palings were dead or dying, some buried in tall grass that had laid down and surrendered to the oncoming winter. The shiny, black shingles of the new roof glistened in the sunlit frost and edging of snow. Meanwhile, the sweet smell of fresh-cut lumber drew him in. A busy silence droned in his ears, while the aroma of mildewed sawdust tickled his nose. Finton was seduced forward by the resurrected, but chronically ill house, with its painted yellow windows, sunbeaten clapboard, and newly painted bottle-green door. At that moment, he was keenly aware of the inadequacy of his youth, his relative newness to these strange surroundings.
    Peering through the key hole, he saw no sign of life. Miss Bridie appeared to be out. He knocked anyway and was shocked when the quietude surrendered to the sound of shuffling feet. While he considered running away, the door opened.
    Miss Bridie cocked her head sideways and regarded him as if he were prey. Her unwashed hair hung about her face, traces of orange whispering of the redhead she once had been. The lines around her blue-black eyes made her look tired, and yet those same eyes contained a vivacity that the rest of her lacked. They looked right through him as if to read his thoughts, even though she seemed to be thinking about something else. Because her head was slightly too large for her neck, it seemed to float above her gaunt body that was draped in a sack-like dress sprayed with grey and black flowers. Finton couldn’t swear he wasn’t seeing a ghost, nor did the odour emanating from Miss Bridie discourage his suspicions. If she had, indeed, been good-looking once, from this close up, he could see little trace of her former glory, except in those remarkable eyes that suggested intimacy with such horrors as he couldn’t imagine. Perhaps it was the result of being bedridden for so long after the fire because of damaged lungs. Maybe because she had never fully recovered, emotionally or physically, from being stabbed by her own daughter. Or maybe there