Days by moonlight Read online

  – I wonder, said the professor, if we could talk a little more

  about what Southern Ontario has meant for your work.

  Mr. Stephens did not look away from me.

  – I’d be happy to, he said. But could we do it later? I’d like to

  talk to Alfred for a little while. Do you mind?

  – Not at all, said the professor. I’m most interested in what

  you two have to say.

  – Yes, said Mr. Stephens, but for now I’d like a few minutes

  alone with Alfred. Just the two of us. I hope you understand. I

  feel like he and I have been through something similar, something

  I need to talk about with him. We’ll talk about anything you like

  later, Professor.

  – I understand perfectly, said Professor Bruno.

  I’m not sure he did understand – nor could he hide his disap-

  pointment – but we left him in the living room, sitting on a couch

  whose side table held a bottle of Scotch, a pitcher of ice water,

  and a cup of coffee. Hanging on the wall behind the couch was a

  large framed painting of a black umbrella.

  – That painting was commissioned by my father, Mr. Stephens

  said, in honour of his father, the inventor.

  – It’s marvellous, said Professor Bruno. A fitting tribute.

  – Thank you, said Mr. Stephens. It’s one of the few I like.

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by “few,’ until we went out to the

  coach house he’d built for himself. There, in what I first took to

  be a large garage, there were some twenty or thirty paintings of

  umbrellas. The walls were crowded with them and those that

  weren’t hanging were stacked against a wall.

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  – My dad was a little ocd, said Mr. Stephens. He commis-

  sioned a painting of an umbrella every year from the time he

  inherited my granddad’s wealth until he died. I think they’re

  ugly, but I can’t throw them away. My father cast no shadow in

  this life. You know what I mean? These are the only things I

  have of his.

  The coach house was spacious. If it had been a garage, it

  could easily have accommodated three cars. There were windows

  in all four walls and stairs that led up to a loft. There were five

  bookcases filled with works of poetry.

  – I don’t write poetry anymore, said Mr. Stephens, but I still

  love to read it.

  Against one wall, beneath the painting of a red umbrella, there

  was a wooden table on which a candle, a squat block of white, sat.

  Mr. Stephens used a match to light it, and the place soon smelled

  of vanilla. There were three more objects on the table: a square of

  writing paper, a square of white paper on which there was a grain

  of something, and a dead mouse. He asked me to sit in the chair

  facing the mouse and, though it made me uncomfortable to see

  the poor creature curled up as if sleeping, I sat down.

  – I don’t believe in miracles, said Mr. Stephens, but there are

  things I don’t understand. And I want to tell you some of them,

  for your own protection.

  The town of Feversham had been sacred ground for centuries.

  The Indigenous people who knew about it long before it was

  “Feversham” left no written record. The clearing they’d made was

  rediscovered by settlers in the 1800s, but it didn’t become an

  “acknowledged secret” until sometime in 1957, when a man named

  Robert van den Bosch began carving a road to the clearing by

  himself. People thought him insane, but men and women have

  been coming to it since then.

  – I’m sure Reverend Crosbie told you all you need to know

  about it, said Mr. Stephens. But there are things she doesn’t know

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  because she’s never had a vision. The biggest thing she doesn’t

  know is that there are two kinds of visionaries: some who receive

  visions and some who are given more. I know which kind you are

  already, but I’d like you to do me a favour. You see those three

  things in front of you? Touch them for me, would you? When you

  touch the paper, think of fire. When you touch the grain of sand,

  think of a beach. When you touch the mouse, do what you did in

  Seaforth. Once you’ve done that, I’ll tell you my story.

  I did what I was asked, but in reverse order. I put my hand on

  the mouse, and after a moment I could feel it moving. When I

  opened my hand, it climbed into my palm as if for protection, its

  heart beating so quickly it almost made my own heart race.

  – I’ll take that from you, said Mr. Stephens.

  He cupped the little creature in his hands and let it loose in

  his yard.

  – Go on, he said. Do the sand.

  I put my hand over the grain of sand and waited. But nothing

  happened. I then put my hand on the piece of paper and, again,

  nothing happened.

  – Isn’t it strange? said Mr. Stephens. Look.

  He put his hand over the grain of sand, then lifted it so I

  could see the sand had multiplied. There was now a clump of

  sand, its many grains indistinguishable from the first.

  – I feel like I’m dreaming, I said.

  – Don’t we all, said Mr. Stephens.

  – What about the piece of paper? I asked.

  – Oh, he said, I can’t do anything with that. The last man I

  saw set paper on fire lives in Toronto, like you. His name’s Ray

  Stasiulis. Do you know him?

  When I said I didn’t, Mr. Stephens sat down on the other

  side of the table from me.

  – It’s not that I think you know everyone in Toronto, he said.

  It’s that people with these gifts often find each other. I mean,

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  without looking. I met Ray while I was dead drunk on the

  Danforth one night. I can’t remember anything about the night,

  except I met Ray and that was before I went to Feversham. There

  must be some reason behind all this. There’s got to be some

  reason I can do this and you can do that and some people can

  set things on fire. But if there is, I can’t figure it out.

  – It does seem like a miracle, I said.

  – It does, I admit it. But to call it a miracle I’d have to believe

  in God and I don’t. I believe the universe is beyond reason and I

  accept that. But if God were behind all this, I’d say God is less

  God than an agent of chaos. Like a randomizer. What else would

  you call these contraventions of the laws of physics?

  – Are there many people who can do this? I asked.

  – A handful, he said. But you’re the first of your kind I’ve

  seen for twenty years. Most of the people who’re changed are

  fire starters. Do you know, Alfred? That mouse was dead for two

  days. At least two days. I found it in one of our traps two days

  ago and I kept it because I’d heard you’d had a vision and I

  wondered if you’d been changed. And now that I see that you

  have been, I can’t tell you this enough: keep this to yourself. I

  mean, from now on, keep it to yourself.

  Mr. Stephens put his hand on the pile of sand and it grew.

  – I suppose I should be grateful for this ability, he said.

  But I find it more complicated than anything else. I�
��ve had to

  hide my nature.

  Much of what he’d told us at his daughter’s house had been

  what you could call true. He had been devastated by the loss of

  Carson Michaels. And he’d spent a year or so in mourning,

  unconcerned with his mental or physical well-being. He had been

  rescued, if you could call it that, by a man named Kit who’d

  apparently snatched him from the clutches of evil. (On the night

  in question, he’d been drunk out of his mind. So, he couldn’t

  vouch for the truth of the possessed pig, etc.) And, after venturing

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  into the clearing in Feversham, he had hallucinated: a woman

  touching his shoulder, an offer to find his beloved, the prospect

  of abandoning poetry.

  His life had changed after that vision in Feversham, yes, but

  not because of it, no.

  Leaving Feversham, he’d decided to go to London, where his

  mother lived. Reverend Crosbie had driven him to Collingwood,

  given him bus fare, and made him a ham sandwich for the trip. It

  should have been a dull journey, five hours of country window-

  licking. But the man beside him – large, American, and diabetic

  – warned him that, because of his diabetes and the fact he’d left

  his food in his suitcase in the belly of the bus, he might begin to

  act irrationally. Not fifteen minutes after the warning, the man

  began to talk out loud about his aunt Patty and her big muff. The

  American seemed to find the word muf f hilarious – his aunt was

  a guitarist in a Go-Go’s cover band and the “Big Muff π” was one

  of her effects pedals – but his hilarity seemed unnatural. Distress

  came through. It was like sitting beside someone who was losing

  his battle with sanity.

  Mr. Stephens had been saving the ham sandwich for himself,

  but to refuse it to a diabetic would have been cruel. Reaching

  into the paper bag, Reverend Crosbie had given him, he found

  there were two sandwiches. Which was just as well because the

  man beside him snatched one of them and, hands shaking, bolted

  it down. His shaking stopped at once but he asked if he could

  have another sandwich. Not for right now but for somewhere

  between Barrie and Toronto when, he just knew, he’d be hungry

  again. Feeling sorry for the man, Stephens reached into the bag

  and found that, no, Reverend Crosbie had in fact left him three

  sandwiches. He gave one of these to his neighbour and, this

  time, counted the sandwiches left: one.

  When, somewhere around Hamilton, he decided to eat,

  Stephens found he had two sandwiches left, the one he’d taken

  from the bag and one left in it. He took this second sandwich out

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  and found there was another in the bag. He took out eleven sand-

  wiches before he accepted that something was very strange.

  – I’ve got to be honest, said Mr. Stephens, this thing fright-

  ened the hell out of me.

  In other words, he was in the same state I’d been in at the

  Tims in Seaforth: convinced that there was something wrong with

  the universe or something wrong with him. For the hour it took

  him to reach London, he examined the paper sack Reverend Cros-

  bie had given him, convinced there was some flaw in it that would

  explain what had happened. He didn’t touch the sandwiches. He

  threw everything out at the bus depot in London.

  – Do you know London? Mr. Stephens asked. It’s the dullest

  city on earth, but it’s home. I know my way around without having

  to think about it. Not that I was thinking when I got home. I was

  so hungry, I went to a Chinese food place across from the depot.

  A buffet with chicken balls and lemon sauce. That kind of thing.

  I’d filled my plate and sat down but there was no salt in the

  shaker. Almost no salt. I shook the shaker out in my palm, just to

  see how much there was. A few grains came out and then they

  multiplied and multiplied, and, in a few seconds, my palm was

  so full of salt that the grains were falling onto the table!

  Mr. Stephens lost his appetite. The thing he felt wasn’t joy or

  wonder. It was guilt, as if he’d committed a crime. Then, too,

  there was the torment of his search for logical explanations. As

  if reason would free him from guilt. He wondered if what he

  thought had happened – the multiplying of ham sandwiches and

  salt – had actually happened. Perhaps, he thought, he was still in

  Feversham hallucinating or, perhaps, on a hospital gurney some-

  where, delusional.

  Two days after the incident with the salt shaker, he was visited

  by a woman named Katerina Ranevsky-Bush. She was dressed in

  sackcloth so thick it made him itchy to see it. Nor did she seem

  to be wearing anything under it. But she had on expensive running

  shoes. Her dark hair was as clean and neat as if she’d recently

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  had it permed and she had a black-metal lunch box, the kind

  construction workers carry. Mr. Stephens was not inclined to let

  her in, especially as he was still trying to understand what had

  happened to him.

  She managed to put him at ease, though.

  – I was in Feversham, she said. I spoke to Reverend Crosbie

  and she told me where you were. Do you mind if I come in? I

  might be able to help you.

  And she did help him.

  – She did almost the same thing for me that I’ve done for

  you, he said.

  In her lunch box, she had a dead dove, a square of paper, an

  ashtray, and a grain of sand. His touch affected the sand, hers

  brought the dove to life. The paper persisted, unburnt in its

  ashtray. Naturally, he had questions. None of which she answered

  to his satisfaction because Katerina believed in both God and

  miracles and felt that the miraculous was as characteristic of life

  as were sunsets or hazel eyes. She was practical about it, too. It

  was her burden that she was a healer. She’d had to change her

  life to accommodate this ability, to accommodate God’s will. He

  would have to do the same. To that end, he should avoid thinking

  of increase when touching things, unless he wanted to multiply

  them. The best way to do that was to learn how not to want.

  Whatever his spiritual beliefs, he’d have to live like a Buddhist.

  Mr. Stephens said:

  – Each of these gifts bring difficulties, Alfred. They all call

  for control and stealth. You don’t want people to know about

  this thing you can do. You’ll be tempted to use it to ease suffering.

  And so you should, when the moment and circumstances are

  right. I don’t think you should deny your gift, Alfred. But just

  remember: as the story goes, people crucified the world’s most

  famous healer.

  – He brought people back from the dead, I said. Do you

  mean I can do that, too?

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  – Probably not, he answered. There are things I can’t multiply.

  But think about it, Alfred. Do you really want to raise the dead?

  Katerina didn’t want to tell me too much because she didn’t want

  to interfere with God’s will. Her God ha
d given this gift to me.

  That’s how she saw it, so whatever I was inclined to do was fine

  by her. But she did tell me a cautionary tale, and that’s the thing

  I want to pass on, and you should think about it because someday

  you might want to pass it on, too.

  Despite its placid exterior, Feversham is a hotbed of intrigue.

  Not simply because the different sects each feel they have a

  special claim to the clearing. But because the religious has a way

  of calling the irreligious to it. It isn’t just that good and evil are

  related, of course. They’re intertwined. Mr. Stephens thought of

  it this way: for every Reverend Crosbie who means to do good

  there is someone who means to do evil. Since 1957, when van

  den Bosch made a road to the clearing, there have been those

  who’ve sought to exploit it for their own good. And, really, it’s

  almost difficult to blame the exploiters. Who wouldn’t want to

  find someone to multiply food? Your catering service would be

  top of the block. And, then, fire starting. Throughout time,

  humans have had uses for fire.

  – But your ability is the trickiest, Alfred. There are good people

  who’d exploit you, use you to help the suffering. And there are bad

  people who’d exploit you, to relieve their own suffering.

  The worst case was of a healer named Geraint Jordan, who

  was kidnapped by a gang in Toronto. The man was a saint, devout

  before his vision in Feversham and tireless in helping others

  after it. The gang in question held him in their safe house, where

  he was expected to heal any gang members’ injuries. Jordan was

  routinely beaten to keep him subservient. Naturally, this arrange-

  ment was a boon to the gang members. They became fearless,

  knowing their wounds, however severe, could be healed at a

  touch: no doctors, no hospitals, no official records. But their

  disdain for Jordan was almost pathological. They treated him like

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  a pet with a useful talent, a pet they punished when it did not

  perform as quickly as they wanted. Finally, it occurred to one of

  the gang leaders that Jordan’s hands were special, not Jordan. So,

  in a bold experiment, they cut off one of Jordan’s hands to bring

  with them in their confrontation with a rival gang. This was, they

  thought, the way to a healing they could exploit as soon as they

  needed it. No surprise: this did not work out. Geraint Jordan