"That This Longing For You Follows Where-ever I Go..."

[psalm_onethirtyone]

Birthdayfic for skyarma! Catechism!verse Percy-Galahad-Heli.

Psalm 34

I guess the most scared I ever been in my life--at least this time--was when me and Brian was boys, and he gone and just about died falling off the Millersburg Ferry. See, we used to live in Millersburg, and Ma, she'd just had her last baby--he was all weensy and red, that was Isaac, he was the last. Ma said she figured we'd just take the Ferry across for the day, have ice cream or something, 'cause it didn't cost but a dollar, so it was okay to take us all over. Just go out for the day. It was just about the middle of July, and we were hot like you wouldn't believe, so we said yes. So we just walked over, all six of us, Ma and Brian and me and Ruth and Simon-Peter and Ma carrying Isaac, and opened the door so the Ferry would come. See, the Ferry, it goes back and forth pretty regular, but you got to open the old white door that's hanging off a tree, to let it know to come on over instead of waiting on the other side of the river. Door ain't got any kind of framework or nothing, it's just a door, right there, foot off the ground. Ruth opened the door and we waited, and the Ferry come just like it should.

Now, Brian, he's the oldest, he was fifteen then. So I was fourteen, I guess, and Ruth was just nine, and Simon-Peter was six. Ma spaced us out pretty good--but then we ain't all got the same Da, so that's a bit of it. Brian got on first, and he went around near the back and stood there watching the water. Ma and Ruth and Simon-Peter was all in the little room with the benches and windows, 'cause Ma didn't trust 'em not to fall off, and I figure that was pretty smart, account of Simon-Peter fell into every bit of water he ever saw.

"Hey," Brian says. "Eric," 'cause we didn't call me Percy back then, not when Ma was around, anyway, "Look."

Well, I always come look when Brian says look, so I come over and have a look down, and we're so close to the shore yet that I can see the bottom of the river, even though the Ferry's wheel's kicking up a whole lot of foam. And there's somebody's cross caught in the wheel. I didn't notice right away, but Brian, he points, and I catch on.

"Lord," I say. I don't always say the smartest things.

The cross ain't gonna pull us short--it's just the chain's wrapped around the wheel, but it's not long enough to cause any trouble.

The thing was, that cross, it was shining like anything, shining right through the water, spinning around and around, and it was just a little one, all made of silver, or I guess silver plate on iron, or something, and Brian, he says, "It looks like hers."

And I know he means my sister.

Only she ain't my sister now. This ain't Ruth. It's my sister from before, my big sister who raised me in the woods, my sister who had just about the longest red-yellow hair you ever seen in your life, and she cut it all off to make a swordbelt for Brian, back then. See, I don't remember her name any more. I still don't. But I remember her plain as anything, and I always did.

And the thing is, she had this little cross our ma gave her, our ma back then, before. It was from Ma's pretties, the stuff our other father made presents outta back when he was courting her. He gave her a couple necklaces and a chain for her hair, and scarves and shoes, and he said he loved her the best, and he knew Ma really loved God and the church, so he made her this little silver cross.

It come out kinda crooked, like the two sticks of wood didn't line up the way they're supposed to--you know, at right angles. And it didn't have Christ on it, but it had little teeny rubies where His hands woulda been, and where His feet woulda been nailed, to stand for the blood. And our father was gonna have 'em do it over, but Ma wanted it like it was. When she took us away, that was just about all she brung with her of his, except a few bracelets to buy food and what-all.

When she died, she went and gave the cross to my sister. She didn't give me nothing, account of I was gone by then. But my sister said that cross belonged to both of us, because it was all we had of Ma or our father.

So here was this cross stuck in the wheel, and it looked like hers.

And before I said just about anything, Brian tries to pull it out.

Only he gets his arm caught in the Ferry wheel.

He was in the hospital for a solid week. His arm was all mashed up awful, and it got pulled clean out of the socket from the wheel turning. They had to push it back in. All I remember about after he went and reached was Simon-Peter screaming and screaming and screaming, and me, I guess I nearly scared the Ferry-man over the side, 'cause I about jumped on him yelling for him to shut everything off--and Brian got stuck underwater. That was the worst bit. I wasn't even thinking, I guess, but I just jumped into that big old Susquehanna River--mile wide, foot deep, we always say, only it's deeper than that--and pulled him out of the wheel. Right out of the wheel.

I was so scared, when we were waiting in that big hospital. We went to Holy Spirit, down in Harrisburg, and I swear I didn't go home the whole time he was there. A little bit of his face got mashed, too, and it was so crazy, all those people yelling and moving him all over the place when we was in the emergency room, and then all these little tubes going into him, 'cause he was just too sick to eat at first, and I was so scared. Brian, he's always been here. I mean, he was there back before, too. He's always been my best friend. And I managed before, I was okay, after he died, but I thought I'd just about die myself if I had to bury him all over again. I kept thinking, God taught me to grow stuff. He taught me to grow.

And I thought, I was gonna teach him too, this time.

This is the worst part: he got that cross. He ripped it right off the chain. And when they got him to the hospital and started working out his arm, that cross was scronched into his hand. I mean in it.

I just about never felt so awful.

I seen folks get caught in farm equipment. I been working on Paul's, that's our step-da, on his farm all my life. I remember when Charlie who was his farmer got his leg caught in the bailer. And one time there was an accident with the sickle bar. I seen that. But Brian was trying to get my sister's cross.

It was just different.

He lost two fingers.

His face fixed up fine, but there's scars all over his arm, and there's these two fingers missing--middle and pinky--so when he gives a benediction at church now, he's got to give it with his left hand, or it don't come out right.

Except it does, because he's Brian, and when he talks to God, it always comes out right. See, he's the bravest person I ever met. And he's always talked to God, near as I remember. It took a long time for him to get better from the Ferry accident, but he went right back to school as soon as he could, and then he went to Seminary. It's sort of funny, because he don't always talk to regular folks so good, but he gives the most beautiful sermons I ever heard in my whole life, he just starts talking about the stuff God tells him, and it always sounds so right.

And I don't work my farm on Sundays. I carry the chalice for him at church.

Ma, she still lives in Millersburg with Paul, and Ruth went and married into the Mennonites, and works in the general store up near Port Trevorton. Simon-Peter gave everybody a surprise and moved to New York to work on magazines, and Isaac has a sheep farm in Lewisburg, where he's on the hog-wrestling team.

Me and Brian, though, we went to Newport, and I bought land up in the hills, and a farmer's market in town, and we were lucky, because folks came by all the time, especially since they fixed up the sidewalks and everything. So we were lucky. And we were happy, too, with the market and Brian preaching.

Only here's the thing. Around Michaelmas, about a year back and a bit, this girl come to buy late apples to stuff her Michaelmas goose with. She was all towheaded and smiley and wearing cute jeans, and ended up buying some pie and jam, too, when all of a sudden she looks at me all laughing and says,

"I sure don't need to buy a goose! I already got one right here!"

Well, shoot. There's only one person ever called me a goose like that, with her eyes all sure, and grinning a big fat grin like a green sausage tomato. I just about never knowed anything so much in my life.

Only I didn't know what to call her. 'Cause I gone and forget her name, like I said.

And that's when she starts laughing.

So we didn't do nearly anything but hug for the next bit of time, all those customers waiting and me just hugging and hugging and Brian was in the back peeling sweet potatoes so we could make pies to sell, and my sister holding me as tight as a blanket on a cold night.

And when we stopped hugging, I stood there like the biggest goose there ever was and said, "This is my sister, folks! See, this is my sister!" and smiling so big I thought my face was gonna fall apart. "She's my big sister!"

And then Brian come out from the back.

I guess I thought he was gonna cry. She went over to him and kissed his cheeks, and held his hand, and then he puts his hand in his pocket, and gives her that cross. He had that cross.

"Here," he says. "I saved it for you."

My sister just grins.

Then they both started helping me with the customers, natural as anything, only I don't figure they ever let go hands that whole time until we closed.

Week later they got married.

And her name's Helen.

See, and this is how we're supposed to be. We were happy, but we weren't really right until she come. That's how it was before. We're all supposed to go together. Brian says holy things come in threes, and he don't mean anything prideful by it, I know, and I think maybe he's right. 'Cause him and Helen, they're about the holiest thing I ever saw. And the way things work, they need me too. We just don't fit together if there's only two, not exactly right.

We all live together now, like we should. I work my farm, and Brian gives his sermons, and Helen, she helps when she's not working at her job--she's a clerk at Steckley's, the pet shop. We all do just exactly the things we always wanted to do.

Helen wears that cross around her neck, and Brian smiles a lot, and we both take care of him good if he gets scared at remembering, account of he don't remember everything as easily as we do. They both call me Percy, like they always used to.

And I don't mind it the way I used to, when Brian gives the benediction with his left hand, instead of the one that's missing fingers.

I guess this year my garden grew just about as big as it ever did.

Comments

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

This is just gorgeous--the right amounts of shudderingawful and shiveringwonderful all put together, with a surprising amount of detail for how short it is. skaryma's a lucky one, to get this. ^__^

[rainbowjehan.livejournal.com]

^___^ Percy's voice is so easy to write. He sounds like anybody from Perry or Snyder.