Embracing Darkness (29 page)

Father Poole realized he couldn’t finish that sentence. The boy was not his to take from his father. He asked himself whether this was not kidnapping. He believed in his heart that he
was
doing the right thing. After all, Mr. Black was abusive, and Mrs. Black had abandoned the both of them. The priest remembered his vow to help all those in need. He couldn’t turn his back on this lost soul, especially since the boy now presumably trusted him.

To
the
devil
with
Mr.
Black
, thought Phineas. He then said to Zachary, “You will stay here until you are old enough to live on your own. I’ll see to that. You needn’t worry, son.”

Zachary showed no further emotion, even when Father Poole called him “son.” He smiled back at Father Poole as the latter returned to the rectory. When he was midway between the maple and the rectory, Father Poole shouted, “YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE IT HERE, ZACHARY! I CAN TELL!” In his newfound joy the priest broke into a slow run, almost skipping, until he reached the rectory’s back stairs.

The conviction that he had made a difference in this child’s life was more fulfillment than Father Poole had ever expected to feel as a priest.
So
this
is
what
doing
good
for
others
feels
like
, he thought.

As the back door of the rectory slammed shut, Zachary’s smile slowly turned into a malevolent grimace. “No Father,” he said to himself. “I won’t worry, not at all.” He then wiped the tears from his eyes, which had been occasioned by the cold wind blowing in his face and the pain from his broken nose. He narrowed his eyes again at the fledgling hawk’s nest. He bent down and pulled the slingshot from his bag.

“No, Father!” Sister Ignatius exclaimed when he told her that they were taking Zachary Black in as an unofficial ward of the church. “You are not authorized to do this, and I will not allow that ruffian to reside within these walls!”

“Mr. Nichols,” began Father Poole. “Would you kindly excuse Sister and me? It seems we have some important matters to discuss so that Zachary may have a smooth transition into this establishment.”

Sister Ignatius vocalized under her breath while the priest continued, “Would you please put Jessica down for her midday nap? Her bedroom is across the way in the old Benson house. Straight up the stairs, first door at the top.”

Arthur Nichols felt uneasy about being there. Sister Ignatius had her arms crossed and was staring at both of them with stern eyes. “I-I’ll just…,” Arthur Nichols stammered, not knowing exactly what he should say for fear that Sister Ignatius would object to allowing him, a perfect stranger, to carry Jessica over to the Benson house and put her down for her nap. “I’ll just take her there,” he replied, “and sit with her while she naps. How’s that?”

Neither the priest nor the nun answered. Nichols walked between the two of them and out the front door.

“Uh, Mr. Nichols,” Father Poole called. “Would you mind checking up on Zachary on the way? He’s out by the maple.”

Nichols felt a chill run down his spine as he closed the door behind him.

Sister Ignatius spoke immediately. “YOU COULDN’T POSSIBLY!” she burst out at the top of her lungs, loud enough even for Arthur Nichols to hear as he walked down the rectory’s front steps.

“Sister,” replied Father Poole calmly, “what were
you
trying to convince me of this morning? Trying to keep a baby who does not belong to us instead of doing the more sensible thing and send her to the orphanage?”

“And
you
told
me
, Father,” she spit back, “that we
didn’t
have the right to keep her, that we had to do the right thing and send her away. You stood right where you’re standing now and told me that we had no more right to keep her than any other Tom, Dick, or Harry!”

“I DIDN’T SAY THAT!” he shouted.

“You said something like it,” she retorted. “The principle’s the same!”

“SISTER,” the priest expostulated. “THIS BOY HAS BEEN ABUSED!”

A hush ensued. Father Poole exhaled slowly and composed himself while Sister Ignatius shied away.

“Please try to see this thing clearly, Sister. We have a teenage boy out there with a busted nose who’s been abandoned by his mother and whose father almost killed him. I know because I saw it not more than two hours ago. If I brought him to the authorities, they’d simply send him back to his father, and I don’t want that. Would
you
want that? The boy’s been
damaged
. I can’t let him go back to that life. No one will know if he stays here. We can keep him safe and hidden away, at least until we can find a suitable home for him. Until then we can let everyone assume he’s run away. We’ll school him here, you and I. I’ll take care of his ciphering; you can see to his English and History.”

He approached her and kneaded her shoulders, tightly enough so that she arched her back slightly. “It
can
work!” he assured her after a few seconds of silence, just as he detected a strong smell of glue. Backing up a few steps, he said, “I thought you had stopped that nonsense.”

“Well,” answered the nun, “when you take someone away from me to whom I’ve grown attached, I need an escape.”

As Father Poole walked toward his office, Sister Ignatius followed closely behind him. “Father,” she persisted. “In my view there is but one option open to us, one that would benefit both us and the children.”

“Oh?” he said.

“A compromise,” she said in a voice just higher than a whisper.

“What sort of compromise?” he asked.

“It seems that you really want the boy to stay here with us, just how badly I can already see.”

“Go on. I’m listening.”

“The boy can stay
if
you allow Jessica to stay too.”

“That’s like blackmail!” Father Poole protested.

“Oh no, Father,” answered Sister Ignatius. “Blackmail would be more like my saying that, if you don’t let Jessica stay, I will tell the bishop that you are keeping a little boy hidden here from his rightful legal guardian.”

Father Poole wasn’t sure whether she’d actually go that far, but he didn’t want to test her. After pausing for a minute to weigh everything, Father Poole acquiesced. “Alright Sister,” he said. “You win.”

“Oh no,” she replied. “
We
win. All of us.”

Arthur Nichols stopped to bundle up Jessica before carrying her around the rectory and over to the maple. He saw Zachary standing about fifteen feet from the tree and poking the ground with a stick. “Hi there!” he called.

Zachary kept his left foot in place, turning on it to face Mr. Nichols, and putting his right foot on top of the hawk fledgling he’d just killed and, until this moment, had been trying to dissect.

“Hello,” Zachary said blandly.

Arthur Nichols observed the dead grass around Zachary’s feet. “Whatcha doin’?” he asked. “Father Poole told me to come out and check on you.” Mr. Nichols still didn’t like the look he saw in Zachary Black’s eyes. “Is everything alright?”

The adolescent’s blank expression was unyielding and again Arthur Nichols was reminded of the overwhelming hardness and discontent this boy possessed. The retired schoolmaster was at a loss for words and each passing moment he spent with Zachary Black increased his anxiety and apprehension of the boy that much more.

Mr. Nichols finally had to back up a few paces as if this were a remedy to ease his trepidation. He heard the cry of a hawk circling overhead, and it was then that Nichols noticed a nest lying at the base of the tree. It apparently had been broken in half. “Aw,” Nichols said sadly. “Her nest must have fallen out of the tree.”

“Maybe she abandoned her chick,” suggested Zachary. “After all, mothers do abandon their young, don’t they, Mr. Nichols? I oughta know, right?”

“Zachary,” the schoolteacher replied. “Surely you wouldn’t be happy at that possibility. If a mother doesn’t return to her babies, they’ll die. You wouldn’t want that.”

Zachary said, “But that’s the best thing for them, isn’t it? I mean, are
you
a good enough person to climb up there, risk fallin’ and breakin’ your leg, to save him from freezin’ to death? Would you care enough about the life of one of God’s little creatures? Perhaps you can’t answer that, Mr. Nichols, but
I
can. I
wouldn’t
go up and save him. I
don’t
care. I don’t think like you do. You would probably see that broken nest over yonder and think the fledgling got himself up an’ outta that there nest, and the force of him takin’ off into the air knocked the nest right off its branch. Me, on the other hand, I’d think that he was so upset from his mamma’s leavin’ him all alone that he fussed around in the nest so hard that the nest fell, and he fell with it, all the way to the ground where the impact left him half dead with a broken neck. Then I’d like to think an animal came along, scooped him up in its mouth, and ate him up till there was no proof left that there had ever been a chick in that nest. That’s what
I’m
thinkin’. But then I can admit that to myself. Can
you
admit to yourself that you wouldn’t have saved it, that you
wouldn’t
have interfered and instead would have let nature take its course?”

At this speech Arthur Nichols took another step back. Zachary still kept his eyes locked on him, still smiled that deviant smile.

“How can you say all this to me, Zachary?” he asked. I mean, I’m sure you’ve had a hard childhood, but… .”

“You don’t know the first thing about my childhood,” Zachary interrupted, “or me for that matter. No one knows me. My parents didn’t know me. That priest in there don’t know me. So I don’t think
you’ll
ever know me, grandpa.”

Zachary lifted the bottom of the stick four inches from the ground and then landed it hard next to his right foot.

“You must hate life very much,” Mr. Nichols said, still holding Jessica as he took his leave of the boy.

Zachary set all his weight on his left foot and moved his right foot away. The flatted corpse of the fledgling he had killed was now embedded in the dying grass. “No, Mr. Nichols, that isn’t it,” he said to himself in a low voice, staring at the dead bird. “I just don’t care.”

Father Poole came into the Benson house a short time later to find Arthur Nichols sitting on the bottom step of the staircase. His hands were crossed, and he was hunched over.

“Praying?” Father Poole said light-heartedly, as if making a joke. Arthur Nichols jerked his head up, his eyes squinting in the light. “We have a place for just that sort of thing across the way,” said the priest. “How’s the boy?”

Arthur Nichols sighed. “He, uhm, he’s… .” Mr. Nichols paused, trying to find the right words. “Physically he appears to be fine, apart from that broken nose of his.” He softly rubbed his temples in a circular motion. “I said this to you before, Father. I don’t trust him.”

Phineas flinched slightly.

“Why is it, Father,” Nichols continued, “that there is no justice in the world?” The retired schoolteacher got up, walked to a nearby mirror, and looked deeply into it, as if trying to see into his soul. “I mean, there are so many people,
good
people,
in need all around the world. It kills me that some who need help get it while others don’t.”

Father Poole approached Arthur Nichols and laid his hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m trying my best to understand what you mean, Arthur,” the priest replied, “but so far I’m drawing a blank. Are you talking about the boy?”

“Yes, but it goes further than that. I can see your kindness and generosity to Zachary firsthand, and I appreciate all that you’re trying to do. I probably can appreciate it more than the average person because I’ve devoted most of my life to children. Yet I can’t help but worry about another boy who may also need your help.”

The idea that Arthur Nichols knew of another child in trouble took Father Poole completely by surprise. “What? Who? Where is this child? How do you know? And why didn’t you tell me before?”

“I hadn’t thought of him, I swear,” replied Mr. Nichols, “until only the last couple of minutes when his face popped into my mind. Around Halloween I saw this black boy walking past my house.”

“Black boy?” said the priest. “I was unaware that
any
Negroes lived in Holly.”

“To my knowledge this boy and his family are the only ones. They’re drifters. There’s the boy, his mother, and his father. I don’t know whether they’re still around, Father. I mean, the boy told me they’d been moving around a lot.”

“What are you asking me to do?”

Arthur Nichols looked out the narrow window next to the front door. There he could see the porch, Old Man Benson’s rocking chair, the rectory, the church, the Keats’s old house, and Holly down below in the distance.

“I know it’s a lot to ask. But if you had seen this fine lad, Father, you would have reacted the same way you did with Zachary. You’d want to help this boy. Now I know he’s a Negro, but that’s what makes his plight so much worse. Can you imagine him getting the same charity around here as Zachary if you weren’t around?”

Father Poole knew what Nichols wanted. He chortled slightly and put his hands on his hips. “Arthur, it’s a noble thing to want to help someone in need. What’s more, in the times we live in, to be blind to a person’s skin color and help them out regardless is very commendable. I share your sentiment.”

Arthur Nichols didn’t react to Father Poole’s praise of him because he sensed a big “but” at the end of the priest’s last sentence.

“But,” the priest added, “I don’t run the church and rectory all by myself. I have to deal with the complaints and protests of Sister Ignatius, and as you’ve already witnessed she’s a woman of many… opinions.”

Arthur approached Phineas, grabbed his hands, and pleaded with him. “
Please
, Father. I know I probably sound like an old fool right now, an old fool with a one-track mind, but I feel very strongly about this. Come down into town with me and help me search for the boy. You’ll see that he truly does need your help. The father abuses him, of that I’m sure. I’ve seen the bruises, the tatters in his clothing, the way he cringes at the slightest thing, and his distrust of everyone around him. I’ve even seen a physical deformity, a mutilated ear.
Please
, Father. I’d have him at my place, but I live in town, and he’d stick out like a sore thumb. The authorities would get wind of his being there in a day or so, and his father would probably pummel me into the ground.”