A Difficult Boy (21 page)

“Sounds boring.”

“I thought so, too, first time I tried it. But then I saw it's like doing a puzzle, trying to figure out what they're saying. And some of it's lovely when you read it out loud.” Daniel held the book a couple of inches away from his nose, like Mr. Bingham bending over Mr. Lyman's account books.

“I don't want to read. I want to
do
something.” The need for movement twitched through Ethan's legs and arms, like an unsatisfied itch deep inside him. He stuck his head down into the hay and tumbled end over end. “Don't you want to play anything? You must know some games.”

“And who'd be teaching me to be playing games, now?”

“Didn't you see anybody playing games when you went to school?”

Daniel slapped his book shut. “Oh, aye. I learned lots of games there from Joshua Ward and his lot. Like ‘See Paddy Run,' and ‘Knock Paddy on His Arse.'”

“Oh.” Ethan watched a bug crawl through the hay.

“Lizzie was s'posed to come up this afternoon and help Ruth with making some rag babies,” Daniel said.

Ethan snorted in disgust.

“I ain't saying you should be making dolls, lad. But Lizzie's a good one for storytelling, and maybe she knows some games, too. If herself don't forbid stories and games on the Sabbath.”

Ethan rolled away from Daniel. “I don't want—” he started to say, then sat up. “Wait here.”

Daniel's mouth curled. He made a noise that sounded like a cough. “And where else would I be going?”

Ethan scrambled to the edge of the mow and flipped himself down onto the barn floor. He landed with a satisfying thump that shook him from his heels to his shoulders. He peeked out the barn door at the gray screen of water slanting down relentlessly between the barn and the house. He took a deep breath and ran, stomping hard in all the puddles.

Ethan returned to the barn with his arms full, a rag wrapped around the odds and ends Lizzie had given him: bits of paper and scraps of wood, pencil stubs, string, pieces of cork, and feathers. Daniel sat on a barrel next to Ivy's stall, his sharp nose buried in his book. He raised an eyebrow as Ethan entered, then returned to his reading.

“Are there any horses yet?” Ethan asked.

Daniel kept his face in his book. “None to speak of. But there's a ghost sat down to dinner.”

“Least he gets a chair.” Ethan set his bundle down and picked up a ragged broom.

Daniel grunted something that might have been half of a laugh. “What you got in there?” he asked over the edge of his book.

Ethan shrugged. “Things.” He swept the barn's center aisle.

Although Daniel seemed to be reading again, Ethan felt the older boy's eyes follow him around the barn. When Ethan peeked at him, Daniel returned to his book, a finger tracing the words, his lips pursed as he tried to decipher them.

Ethan sat next to his bundle and opened it so that he could take something out without Daniel seeing what else was inside.

“You don't want to be hearing 'bout this ghost, then?” Daniel asked. “He's all over blood and such.”

“I'm busy.” Ethan pulled his knife out and began carving the thing in his hand.

“If you were wanting a bit of lunch, I'd think you could'a asked Lizzie for something nicer than an old beet, couldn't you?” Daniel finally said.

Ethan bit his lower lip to keep a smile from dribbling out. He finished cutting the top off the beet, sliced off the taproot, and shaved the cut places round. “I'm not going to eat it.” He set the beet aside and returned to his bundle. He pulled out nine pieces of kindling, carried them to the far end of the barn, and set them on end, like soldiers standing at attention in a neat triangle. He dusted his hands on the seat of his trousers and retrieved the beet.

Both of Daniel's eyebrows rose as Ethan took the book out of his hands and replaced it with the beet. “What're you after, lad?”

Ethan tilted his head toward the pieces of kindling. “Haven't you ever seen ninepins before?”

Daniel rolled the beet between his hands, smearing his palms red with the juice. “I never played. I told you I don't know any games.”

“Well, then, I guess I'll have to teach you.”

“I can—almost—reach it.” Ethan stretched for the shuttlecock trapped in the crotch where the beams met. He dug his
stockinged toes into Daniel's shoulders, but it was like trying to stand on a board laid edgewise. “Can't you get me any higher?”

“Not unless you stand on me head. You could'a just climbed up for it, you know.” Daniel's hands tightened on Ethan's ankles as the boy wobbled.

“This is better. It's like being in the circus.”

“How would you know? You never seen one.”

“Mr. Stocking told us all about it.” Ethan stretched again, his fingertips brushing the end of a feather. “Al-most—got—it. Can you stand on your toes?”

“You think he really done all he said? Dancing and singing and acting and such?”

“I don't know. I can't see him acting a girl's part.” Grabbing one beam for balance, Ethan wriggled the shuttlecock into his hand. “Wearing a gown and talking like this: ‘Oh, my dearest darling sweetheart! Kiss me! Kiss me! Kiss me!'” Ethan's voice went high and squeaky when he chirped the silly love-words. He finished with loud, smacking kiss-noises. Daniel's shoulders shook violently, and he made funny wheezing sounds. “Stop it, Daniel! I'll fall!”

The boys went down together in a noisy tangle of arms and legs, Ethan making a lumpy but safe landing on top of Daniel's bony limbs.

“Ow! Get off!” Daniel growled, but Ethan could barely make out the words between the cackling sounds coming out of Daniel's throat.

Ethan untangled himself and rolled away. Somehow he'd managed to hang on to the shuttlecock. “It was your fault. You wouldn't stand still.”

“It was your fault for making me laugh,” Daniel said.

“My fault? You're the one who—” Ethan stared at Daniel, who lay slumped on the floor, red-faced and breathless, that
odd sound still gurgling in his throat. “I made you laugh?”

Daniel rubbed his sleeve across his eyes and nose. “Is that so strange, now? I'd'a thought—”

He was interrupted by the creaking of the barn door. Both boys flung themselves upright and forced their faces stern and sober.

“What do you think you're doing?” The rain dribbled off the rim of Silas's hat, puddling at his feet. He crossed his arms and frowned at the boys.

Ethan hid the battered shuttlecock behind his back. “Nothing.”

“We were only having a bit of fun,” Daniel said. The grin began to fade from his mouth, but stopped halfway, leaving an odd twisted smile there.

“Fun.” Silas studied Daniel's face hard, as if he'd never seen it before.

“Ethan was showing me some games. Ninepins and shuttlecock and such.” Daniel picked up the broken shingle he'd used for a paddle.

“On the Sabbath.”

“They say God rested on the Sabbath.”

Silas's mouth pursed. “I don't think God spent the seventh day playing shuttlecock.”

“Pity. Maybe if He'd'a spent more time playing shuttlecock with Adam and Eve and less time making rules, maybe we'd still be in Paradise.”

Silas turned his head, coughing so hard it bent him over. When he turned back, his frown was firmly in place. “Mr. Merriwether would call that blasphemy.”

Daniel shrugged. “I'm a Papist. Me whole life is blasphemy to Mr. Merriwether.”

“I don't imagine your Pope spends his Sabbath playing games, either.”

“You won't tell, will you?” Ethan pleaded. “We didn't break anything.”

Silas reached out toward Ethan. Reluctantly, Ethan yielded the shuttlecock. Silas pointed to a shingle-paddle lying on the barn floor. Ethan picked it up and handed it over. “It's time for chores. Go fetch the buckets and bring the cows in. Lizzie'll be along in a little bit.” He studied the bit of cork, fledged with ragged and bent feathers. “I suppose she gave you this?”

“Just scraps and things she said nobody'd miss. She won't get in trouble, will she?”

“Go do your work.” Silas waved the shingle at the boys.

Daniel shrugged into his frock and pulled his cap down low over his eyes. “C'mon, lad.” He tossed Ethan his frock and headed out into the rain.

Ethan retrieved his shoes. He hopped as he pulled the trampled-down backs up over his heels. “Don't be cross, Silas. We didn't mean no harm. I only wanted to make him laugh.”

“Laugh?” Silas's eyebrows gathered. “Is that what all that noise was?”

“Haven't you ever heard him laugh before?”

Silas smoothed the shuttlecock's bent feathers. “I can't say I ever have,” he said. He seemed to be talking to himself, as though he'd forgotten Ethan was there.

“Are you coming, lad?” Daniel shouted from the yard. “I ain't moving them cows by meself.”

“Coming!” Ethan called back, snatching up his stick. As he turned to shut the door, he saw Silas step out to the middle of the barn, bouncing the shuttlecock on the shingle. Silas caught the shuttlecock, threw it high into the air, and slammed it hard with the paddle. It thudded against the far side of the barn and bounced back to his feet, where he crushed it beneath his boot.

Daniel was restless.

Most nights, the boys dropped off to sleep within minutes of crawling under the sheet. But now and then, Daniel would roll back and forth, pull the blanket over his shoulders, push it away, flatten the bolster, fluff it up again, then finally lie still, trying to fool Ethan into thinking he slept. Ethan could tell from his breathing that he didn't. On those nights, Ethan would drift to sleep, only to wake a few hours later to find a cold spot in the bed where Daniel had been.

Several times, Ethan had vowed to find out where Daniel disappeared to. But no matter how hard he'd tried to keep his eyes open, they would droop shut long before Daniel rose and slipped down the stairs and away to his secret destination.

When Daniel fidgeted with the blankets and thumped the bolster before settling down for the night, Ethan resolved once more to discover the older boy's secret. He forced himself to keep breathing deeply, steadily, as he listened to Daniel pad across the floor and slip into his clothes. Ethan opened one eye and peeked over the crook in his elbow. The western fan window framed Daniel's head and shoulders in silver-blue moon glow. Ethan wondered what made him stare out that window first thing in the morning and last before bed, his fingernails digging into the sill, one hand clutched around his little wooden horse. Daniel made a strange sign with his right hand, then grabbed the tiny horse, stuffed it into his pocket, and headed down the stairs.

Ethan clenched his fists and counted to ten to make sure Daniel was out of earshot before he dressed and followed him.

Daniel was out of sight by the time Ethan pulled the back door closed behind him, but it wasn't hard to guess where he'd gone. Ethan followed the road beneath the western fan window. It curved down the hill between the rye fields and to the lower pastures, orchards, and hay fields. Blue-green by day, the rye glimmered silver in the moonlight, whispering to itself in the breeze. Ethan kept to one side of the road, hidden in the shadow of the apple trees that lined the way. He would have passed Daniel by if he hadn't heard him talking in his strange and secret language.

The moon hung low in the sky, like a big golden peach nibbled at one edge. Daniel waded through the grass a dozen yards from the edge of the road. Ethan carefully followed, keeping close to the ground in case Daniel turned. About fifty feet from the road, Daniel's head bobbed lower and lower, as if he were sinking slowly into the ground.

Ethan shivered. Maybe the stories everybody told about Papists and pagans and their secret midnight rituals were true. He bit his lip. No, that was stupid. Witches and magicians and ghosts and goblins only existed in stories that old people told to scare babies into behaving. He didn't believe any of that—anymore. Still, his heart thudded against the ground as he crept snakelike through the grass.

He drew in a nearly audible breath when he realized that Daniel wasn't being sucked into the earth but had merely gone down a little embankment. He patrolled a rough square in the center of a large flat area at the bottom of the bank as though pacing off a measured distance. He would pause now and then to pick up a rock or a fragment of something Ethan couldn't see. Then he walked on again, made a sharp turn to the left, and paced off the next side of his square.

He repeated the walk several times, then went to the center of the square and sat down. The angled shadows showed a slight depression with raised edges marking the line that Daniel had paced. In its center, where Daniel sat, there was a mound about five feet square. Daniel dug his fingers into the mound, hunting for something. He pulled out an object and threw it. He threw a second and a third, aiming in a different direction each time. The fourth landed a couple feet from Ethan.

Ethan reached out and picked it up. It was a triangular lump, smooth on two sides, rough on the third, and it shed powdery dust on his fingers when he rubbed it. He moved his hand so that the moonlight fell on it. He was disappointed to find only a piece of broken brick. Still, he put it in his pocket.

He felt as though he watched for hours, but Daniel did almost nothing. He talked to himself for a bit, but it was all in Gaelic, so Ethan couldn't tell what he was saying. Perhaps he was trying to conjure up some Papist magic, but his words had the rhythm of ordinary conversation, not the cadence of prayers or charms. And the conjuring, if there was any, produced nothing. Now and then he stood and poked around the mound or paced the square. Although his angular body and ill-fitting clothes made an eerie figure in the silvery moonlight, there didn't seem to be any purpose to his actions. Mostly, though, he just sat.