Sylvanus Now by Donna Morrissey Page B

Swear to God, I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”
    “As long as you brings me back soon as I says.” And waiting not for his nod, she marched straight ahead to his boat, a tinge of guilt over the eagerness with which he followed her. She shrugged carelessly. Had she not bid him a firm goodbye last week? Yet still he came. Fine. By doing so, he buffered any remorse she might have in knowing that it wasn’t him she was seeking—at least, not the life he was offering—but merely another morsel for her cupboard.
    In just a week, the meadow had changed from a water-soaked bog into a summer’s garden, the grass not yet tall enough to hide the sprinkling of daisies and piss-a-beds and buttercups, all swaying in the breeze, as intoxicated as she upon their nectar. And with the wind rustling through the aspens coming into leaf, and the falls more quiet with the spring runoff drying up, it was easier to pry her eyes away from its tumultuous waters and marvel at this bouquet of wildflowers brought to her by this fisherman. Undoubtedly, she thought, casting out her arms as if in dance and breathing deeply of the sweet, perfumed air, it’s a different wind that rustles the trees of Cooney Arm, carrying nothing of the salt of the sea, as though laundering itself through the running waters of the falls before folding itself over her.
    “You mind if I walks for a bit—by myself?” she asked as he, his boat secured to a rock, came up over the land-wash, joining her.
    “First, I wants to show you something up on the head.” He pointed to the far side of the meadow and a path leading up the wooded hillside and out on the cliffs of the headland and the neck. “Won’t take long,” he coaxed. “Come on.”
    He took the lead across the meadow, buttercups, daisies, and clover strangling around his boots. Nearer the treeline, the land sloped upwards with a well-trodden path snaking through the woods. Her sweater hooked on a rotted piece of slab-wood nailed to a tree, the words “Widow’s Walk” more worm-chewed than chiselled across its front.
    “Mother put it there after Father never come home,” he said, carefully checking that his pant legs were tucked inside his rubber boots before bending into the uphill climb. She nodded. Most outports had a similar high peak, one that afforded the best view of the sea, chance someone was late getting home, although none was ever marked.
    “She’s never said why she marked it. She don’t talk about that time,” he replied to her thought, grasping branches and shrubs, pulling himself along.
    She followed behind, waiting as he climbed up over a rotted stump. Reaching back, he took her hand, helping her alongside, then carried on with his climbing, glancing over his shoulder every so often to ensure she was still following, occasionally reaching down for her hand—as much to touch it, she felt, as to help hurry her along, for the path, whilst steep, was never that difficult. Still, she was grateful for her sturdy canvas shoes, and gasped for breath as the path became more steeply inclined and the wind more strong.
    The trail and the evergreens enclosing it gave way to a fringe of junipers that been shorn for decades by screaming winds, till finally they naturally grew into the flattened, entangled brush of the tuckamores. She crouched amongst them, peering out onto the bald, rocky crown of the cliff that narrowed the neck, and at the gulls swooping below eye level, and at the ocean spreading out like an upturned sky, its sun leaking yellow across its surface, and the sporadic breaking of swells like scraps of cloud flung thither by the winds. Old Saw Tooth jutted up not too far off, foaming like a cyclone amidst the breakers crashing around it.
    Sylvanus struggled toward the edge of the cliff, his pant legs flapping and his coat tails splayed out like the blackened wings of a cormorant drying itself.
    “See there?” he shouted, and she shifted her tear-cut eyes toward where he was