The Stolen Child(38)

male. Nothing said, but wayward glances, brusqueness, a snarl or two. For the rest of our time together,

we did not get along. A year and a half remained in my high school career before I could get away to

college, so we circled one another, barely exchanging a sentence on our rare encounters. He treated me

like a stranger half of the time.

I recall two occasions when he stepped out of his inner world, and both times were unsettling. A

few months after the scene at the winter recital, he brought up the matter of the woman in red and her

strange story. We were tearing down my mother's henhouse, having sold the birds and gotten out of the

egg and chicken business after turning a handsome profit. His questions arrived in the intervals between

the prying crowbar, squealing nails, and tear-ing lumber.

"So, you remember that lady and her story about the boy and the deer?" He ripped another plank

from the frame." What do you make of that? Do you think such a thing could happen?"

"Sounded incredible to me, but I suppose it might have happened. She seemed pretty sure of

herself."

Grunting with effort, he tugged away at a rusty nail. "So it might be true? How do you explain her

thinking it was you?"

"I didn't say it was true. She seemed convinced it happened, but it isn't likely, is it? And anyway,

suppose something like that did happen to her, she is wrong about me. I wasn't there."

"Maybe it was someone who looked like you?" He threw his weight into it, and the rest of the wall

crashed down, leaving only the skeleton stark against the sky.

"That's a possibility," I said. "I reminded her of someone she saw once upon a time. Didn't you tell

her that everyone has a double in the world?

Maybe she saw my evil twin?"

He eyeballed the frame. "This'll tumble down with a few good kicks." He knocked down the frame,

loaded it up in the back of a truck, and drove away.

The second occasion occurred about a year later. His voice woke me at first light, and I followed

the sound from my bedroom and through the back doorway. A feathery mist rose from the lawn and he

stood, his back to me, in the middle of the wet grass, calling out my name as he faced a stand of firs. A

dark trail of footsteps led into the woods ten feet in front of him. He was stuck to the spot, as if he had

startled a wild animal that fled away in fear. But I saw no creature. By the time I drew near, the

diminuendo of a few raspy calls of "Henry" lingered in the air. Then he fell to his knees, bent his head to

the ground, and quietly wept. I crept back into the house, and pretended to be reading the sports page

when he came in. My father stared at me hunched over the newspaper, my long fingers wrapped around

a coffee cup. The wet belt of his robe dragged along the floor like a chain. Soaked, disheveled, and

unshaven, he seemed much older, but maybe I had not noticed before how he was aging. His hands

trembled as if palsied, and he took a Camel from his pocket. The cigarette was too wet to light despite

his repeated attempts, so he crumpled the whole pack and tossed it in the trash can. I set a cup of coffee

in front of him, and he stared at the steam as if I had handed him poison.

"Dad, are you all right? You look a mess."

"You." He pointed his finger at me like a gun, but that's all he said. The word hung in the air all

morning, and I do not think I ever heard him call me "Henry" again.

• C H A P T E R 1 2 •

We entered the church to steal candles. Even in the dead of night, the slate and glass building

asserted its prominence on Main Street. Bound by an iron fence, the church had been laid out in the

shape of a cross, and no matter how one ap-proached it, the symbols were inescapable. Huge chestnut

doors at the top of a dozen steps, mosaics from the Bible in the stained-glass windows reflecting

moonlight, parapets hiding angels lurking near the roof—the whole edifice loomed like a ship that

threatened to swamp us as we drew near. Smaolach, Speck, and I crept through the graveyard adjacent

to the eastern arm of the church and popped in through a side door that the priests left unlocked. The

long rows of pews and the vaulted ceiling created a space that, in the darkness, pressed down on us; its

emptiness had weight and substance. Once our eyes adjusted, however, the church did not seem as

smothering. The threatening size diminished, and the high walls and arched ceilings reached out as if to

embrace us. We split up, Smaolach and Speck in search of the larger candles in the sacristy to the right,

I to find the smaller votive candles in an alcove on the other side of the altar. A fleeting presence seemed

to follow me along the altar rail, and a real dread rose inside me. In a wrought iron stand, dozens of