Night Snow
No traffic, no tracks on the road, the small population of the village is all at home at this time of night, all cozy. Everyone is resting and enjoying the storm. Tomorrow with the morning light all will be beautifully white and the landscape will be changed by deep drifts of snow. And then, with a sigh here and there perhaps, on will go the outdoor clothes and out will come the shovels and snowblowers. But for now, yes, the idyllic can still happen in this war-torn world, as Mother Nature dispenses peace like fairy dust.
[Prospect, Nova Scotia]

Hello Be My Name

When the text came from Noah's father, it merely said, "You can have him back now. He's up there with the ghost. But be very very careful or you might fall down."

"What the hell does that mean?" said Delilah, who thought she had exhausted her tears and her anger but now discovered a fresh reservoir of both. "I think you should go ahead and call the police anyway. They can track his phone. They can catch him and make him take us to Noah!"

Little Mac deliberated. They were all on the couch together, he and Delilah and Big Bertha and even Sir Barksalot. The predicted storm had arrived and was shaking the house with its high winds and driving the heavy snow so it hit the windows with a continuous smacking sound. This had frightened Sir Barksalot and caused him to take shelter in Big Bertha's lap. When Delilah called his human's name, he made a little anguished noise in his throat and pawed the air.

Little Mac had a pocket knife out and was slowly and carefully cleaning his fingernails with it. He folded the blade back in now and put it away.

"I don't think we need the police," he announced. "I think I know where Noah is." He stood and took a deep breath. "Get your coats and hats. He'll want to see us all."

"If he can still see," sobbed Delilah. "'With the ghost', it says! How can you be with a ghost unless you're ... unless you're ..."

Big Bertha put the dog on the floor and held her daughter for a minute. "There. Now, let's go get our boy. I'll bring a chocolate bar. Likely he'll be hungry. His daddy never remembered mealtimes too well."

"But how can we go anywhere in this weather?"

"We'll take the truck," said Little Mac. "Don't worry. It's not far. Unless I miss my guess."

***

It wasn't far, but by the time they slid to a stop in front of the abandoned bed and breakfast just up the road past the church, the windshield wipers had given up, unable to shift the heavy mass of wet snow blasting onto the glass, and the headlights were too covered to shine much of a light. Also the ever problematic engine died before Mac could even turn off the key. "Well," he said, "I shouldn't be long. Wait here. You'll be warm enough till I get back. Then we can all walk home together. It's not far and we can huddle up."

"What do you mean, 'Wait here'? I'm going with you," said Delilah.

"No," said Little Mac. "The widow's walk is rotten in places. I think that's what was meant by 'Be careful or you might fall down'. And I'm the smallest and lightest among us."

"How can you be sure he'll be up there? How do you know that's the ghost?"

"Because," said Little Mac, "it's the only ghost we could possibly have in common. And this is where Noah said he was going with Barkie, to tell him the tale of the ghost in the 'doomer', as he calls the old dormer. Your husband is just being dramatic, poor soul."

Still he felt in his pockets for both his flashlight and his knife before getting out. When he did get out, and before he could shut the creaky door, Sir Barksalot was out in a flash and away toward the great looming building.

The widow's walk was slippery and the wind did threaten to tear him right off it so he had to get down and crawl, but without falling through anywhere he eventually arrived at the door of the old dormer, where Sir Barksalot was waiting already and barking nonstop.

Some vague instinct prompted by his military experience told him to take hold of the dog's collar before trying the door, and this seemed justified when the door swung open and he beheld Noah at the other end of the narrow apartment, lit by the shaky light of a guttering candle and lashed to a giant stuffed bear and lord knew what explosives that he could not see, for Sir Barksalot surged mightily ahead to rush to the boy's side and almost pulled Little Mac off his feet.

Unaware of their presence, blindfolded and with headphones over his ears, Noah was saying something over and over that his grandfather could not quite make out. He edged closer. Sir Barksalot went silent in the presence of his human's voice. Then the words became clear.

"Hello be my name!" was what Noah was saying, fervently, over and over, as the tears spotted his blindfold from the inside. "Hello be my name!"

***

"It was the Lord's Prayer," the child explained later, when they were all home again and gathered around the freshly stoked woodstove with Noah in his mother's lap. "He told me to recite it if I got too scared. But all I could remember was 'Hello be my name'.

On the kitchen table was the giant bear. There had been no explosives after all. In fact the whole head of the bear had been relieved of its stuffing and refilled with money, several thousand dollars in bills both large and small, that now lay on the table by the bear's emptied head.

"He wasn't mean," said Noah. "He was very nice, nicer than he ever was before. He gave me the bear and the thing in my pocket that makes the music through the headphones, and he told about the money in the bear and he kissed me a lot and he said he just couldn't be with me now and how it was making him crazy. He said the being tied up was a game. He said I never would see him again and that he couldn't stand me looking at him or hugging him when he said goodbye. He said not to worry because you were coming to get me. And then he turned the music on."

"Did you tell him you didn't want to be tied up?" asked Delilah.

"No," Noah said. "Because I did want it. I wanted him to go away, because he was scaring me with all the kissing and the crying, and I had to be tied up for him to go. So I wanted it."

***

Big Bertha sang her skittish brood to sleep, Delilah and Noah and Sir Barksalot all in the same bed, but had also to throw in some loving for Little Mac. And then some more.

Finally her leatherbound diary lay open before her and she could begin to confide.

"He reached into our haven just as easily as he picked the lock on that dormer door. Easy as you please. Our safety net of busybodies with their damn binoculars, well, so much for that. Nobody noticed a thing. He took our Noah and he scared him half to death. For that I could wish him eternally damned. Or at least arrested and jailed.

"But I don't and I won't. He's a poor soul if ever there was one. His heart must be just like the ghost's in the 'doomer', all broke up in little pieces everybody's always stepping on. And Mac and I agree that, like he said, he won't be back. This was his last hurrah. We'll put that money in a fund for Noah, however it was gained, and very likely by thievery, and that will be the all of any child support. We won't accuse him. We won't pursue him. He's in his own hell already, and we don't want to go there and get it all over us.

"I'm tired and can't say half of what is on my mind, so I'll just end for now with Noah's fractured version of the Lord's Prayer.

"May hello always be our name."


16 March 2018
Texas Jim
Prospect, Nova Scotia
www.granitecoast.ca