Free Finton Moon by Gerard Collins Page B

were such common occurrences at the Battenhatch house that they were a part of it, forever associated with it, as much as ticks and lice, stormy nights, or Miss Bridie Battenhatch.
    His father held her hand, even stroked her hair as they loaded her onto the stretcher and aboard the ambulance; he sat with her in the back. He looked briefly at Finton, who sat on the dilapidated front step, his bloody feet tacky on the damp wood, sticky hands tucked beneath his armpits. He struggled to catch his breath, muttering a grateful prayer as the ambulance rolled away, bathing him in bloodlight and siren’s wail. His lips still tasted the cold stink of her flesh, and his body was wracked with pain.
    Although trembling with fear and the faint stirrings of a headache, he crept back into the kitchen, curious to see the knife that Morgan had used to slice open her mother. But it wasn’t there. He massaged his temple, blinked and stared. But the tabletop contained only a wrinkled doily, a half-full bottle of Five Star rum, and an upset tumbler. The knife was gone.
    By morning, his headache had disappeared. The dried bloodstain on his pillow was easy to ignore. Half asleep, he glanced at the dark spot, drew his finger across its crusty surface, scraping most of it away with a fingernail and flicking away the residue. In the bathroom mirror, he noticed a brown blemish on his face created by a trickle of blood that had dried overnight. Using a wet face cloth, he washed away the stain.

Gods and Devils

    Finton told no one about what had happened that night at Bridie Battenhatch’s house. For several days after the incident, whenever Finton entered the same room, Tom would grow visibly tense, with a longer drag on his cigarette or a nervous tapping of his index finger upon the Camel package in his left hand. If he was watching TV when Finton entered the living room, Tom would leave. Whenever Finton appeared as if he was going to speak to him, Tom would depart. The police had come around, but Finton overheard his father say that Miss Bridie’s wound was self-inflicted. “She gets riled up sometimes when she talks about stuff—probably stabbed herself by accident,” he said. In the end, there were no witnesses, since even her mother wouldn’t say a word against Morgan, and Miss Bridie spent only a day or so in hospital.
    Two days prior to Halloween, as the other children and the teacher were leaving for the day, Finton approached Father Power after religion class. The sun’s golden rays illuminated the classroom as the priest sat on the edge of his desk and listened gravely, nodding wisely and furrowing his eyebrows. Finally, he clasped his hands on his lap and asked, “What exactly do you think you did?”
    â€œLike Jesus did with Lazarus, Father.” He looked down as he spoke, afraid to meet the priest’s analytical stare. “Kind of.”
    Father Power cleared his throat and gazed out the window into the bright, golden sun. “Why do you think that?” He ambled toward the boy and smiled, though Finton found no comfort in this facial construction, which seemed intended to put him at ease and actually achieved the opposite effect. The priest, only in his thirties, had a thin, angular face and hawkish nose that complemented his raven-like hair and rendered him treacherous on sight alone. “I mean—she likely was never dead to begin with. Don’t you think?” The priest planted a firm hand on Finton’s shoulder that kept him locked in place and, in a confusing flash, ran his fingers through a shock of the boy’s hair.
    â€œShe looked dead.” Finton glanced at the floor, happening to see his own hands, which he had scrubbed consistently with scalding hot water and Sunlight soap for the past two weeks, but the stains of Miss Bridie’s blood remained.
    With one long finger, Father Power lifted Finton’s chin. “But we both know there’s a