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  Vera’s tugging harder now, muttering in her ear, “—half of them lost in the war, and this one with his own business, and clean and well-mannered into the bargain.” She pauses for air. “Not a Catholic, true, but he can scarcely help the heathen he was born to.”

  “No, Aunt.”

  “For pity’s sake, Mathilda, smile. Were you waiting for wine and roses? Butterflies in your belly at the sight of him?” Vera heaves out a sigh. “He converted for you, girl. That shows consideration, and in the end a little consideration is worth more than all the blessed butterflies in the world.”

  Mathilda stares mutely into the glass. A vein dances in Vera’s temple. “Now you listen to me.” Her fingertips fasten into Mathilda’s arms. “You’re the bastard niece of the church skivvy, you haven’t a penny to your name and you’re no great beauty besides, but this one, this one came begging for your hand.” She continues through clenched teeth. “You ought to be laughing. You ought to be rolling in the aisles at your luck, so the least you could manage is a smile!” Suddenly aware of her grasp, she flinches and lets go, covering her face with her hands.

  Mathilda turns in her chair. “It’s all right, Aunt Vera. Really. I’m all right.”

  She lays a careful hand on the older woman’s hip. Her aunt is rail thin beneath her one good dress. It’s a sombre shade of blue, otherwise indistinguishable from its rack-mates, every one of them spinster black.

  Vera wipes her cheeks viciously. “Look at me, stupid old trout—”

  “No,” Mathilda murmurs. “It’s just all the fuss on top of everything that’s happened. Father Rock and all—”

  Vera’s face splits like a wound.

  “Oh, Aunt.” Mathilda stands and folds the hard little woman in her arms. Vera shudders against her, bawling a wet streak down the satiny shoulder of Mathilda’s dress. That’s when the organ sounds, so that’s how the bride approaches the aisle, soggy-shouldered, following her sobbing aunt.

  The church is roughly one-quarter full—not bad for a Tuesday wedding, especially one where the groom has no family and the bride has no friends. Peter Jablonsky shuffles forward to meet them, decrepit in his ill-fitting Knights of Columbus blazer. He grabs Mathilda’s arm and steers her, patting her hand and muttering, preparing to give her away. She takes in Thomas’s thick, twisting neck and trusting grin, then drops her eyes. Her shoes are two white, pointy-nosed rats, peeking out singly and retreating beneath her dress.

  She looks up when she reaches the altar. Not to the new priest, not even to the groom, whose eyes seek hers, but beyond, to the crucifix, Christ’s enormous wooden form. He’s painted beautifully, his skin the exact colour of cloud.

  The priest’s voice draws her down. It’s throaty, a little hoarse even, as though he’s addressing her alone. She shifts her gaze to its source, the Adam’s apple sharp in his throat, scoring his long neck from the inside.

  Under a dark overhang of hair, his eyes are black. No, Mathilda corrects herself, grey. She peers at him. They’re both, charcoal with black ripples, a series of concentric bands. The butcher dissolves at her side. For the moment she forgets everything about him—the stubborn blood beneath his nails, his helpless smile, his name.

  When it comes time for Mathilda to speak, her jaw moves woodenly in the monotone of the entranced. The new Father may be young, but his eyes are ancient. Ringed with time like a fossilized tree.

  During the reception Vera ricochets about the church basement like a thing possessed, piling plates high, filling coffee cups and wineglasses before they can empty by half.

  Two weeks earlier, Mathilda was the one who ran around. Every ambulatory Catholic in the parish was there—the faithful and the fallen. They all ate sandwiches and little cakes, a few even tied one on in memory of Father Rock. Father Beaubien had done a passable job of the service. He stayed long enough to lift a few glasses before doddering back to St. Antoine.

  There was no comforting Vera. She sat rigid as a corpse all afternoon, staring clean through any kind soul who tried. As soon as she could get away with it, Mathilda escorted her aunt back to the rectory, where Father Rock’s dogs were locked up in the kitchen, howling.

  “Shut up, all of you!” Vera rushed at them. “Shut up! SHUT UP!!” She hauled open the back screen door. “He’s gone, do you hear me?! He’s gone! NOW GET!” The dogs got the message in the form of a broom at their backsides. They squeezed through the door, yelping across the yard to disperse among the trees.

  The moment Vera came back to herself, she wept and ground her teeth. “How could I?” she wailed. “How could I do it?”

  “They’ll come home,” Mathilda told her. “Soon as they’re hungry, you’ll see.”

  But they didn’t. Not a single, solitary dog.

  Thomas’s body gives off an inordinate amount of heat. Stifling beneath the sheets, Mathilda can’t help but roll away from his reaching hands.

  “What—?” He falters. “Mathilda, honey, don’t be scared.”

  “I’m not,” she mumbles. “It’s—it’s a bad time.”

  “A bad time?” He smothers her shoulder with his hand. “Honey, it’s our wedding night.”

  “I know that,” she snaps. “It’s just not a good time.” She sighs heavily. “You know.”

  “Know what?”

  “It’s my time, Thomas. My monthlies.”

  “Oh!” His hand springs back guiltily. “I’m sorry, I never even thought—”

  “It’s all right,” she cuts him off. “Goodnight.”

  “Oh. Yes. Goodnight, sweetie.” He drops a careful peck on her cheek.

  Mathilda hugs herself. It’s the first full-blown lie between them. Her period ended two days ago, Aunt Vera having quizzed her mercilessly before setting the date.

  She inches further away from him, aligning herself with the edge of the bed. Her husband. For the first time ever she contemplates the stark reality, the physical implication of the word. She has some idea of the mechanics involved. At St. Joseph’s the older boys stuck rigid fingers into loosely formed fists, rubbing hard and rolling their eyes, laughing when she turned and ran.

  As for passion, she’s witnessed it only once in her life. Her aunt had let her keep the window seat all the way from Winnipeg, though she’d scolded when Mathilda left a nose print on the glass. As they slowed to a halt at Mercy station, Mathilda was careful to hold her face close to but not touching the pane. A freight train stood motionless on the next set of tracks. Framed between two cars—one golden with flower spots of rust, the other watery blue—two people were jammed up in a tangle against a corrugated shed. The man was slender inside his dark coveralls, his black hair oiled and combed, his gloved hand kneading the woman’s breast. She was taller than him, broad-shouldered, sturdy-legged. Her pale braid kicked as they twisted their two faces into one.

  Thomas sighs in his sleep, sending a blast of hot breath across Mathilda’s cheek. She might as well be bleeding. She feels tender and sick all the same.

  2

  THE BOG

  Shambling through the bog, Castor can feel it—the whole seething mess—not so much around him as inside. It inhabits him, from the tops of its knobby trees, down deep through the peat to the lake that lies dying below. The green stink of its slow, sodden growth. He hates it.

  Then suddenly, achingly, he loves it. His beautiful bog, all puffy-lipped orchids, flying squirrels and feasting shrews. In winter, a hidden city of trails under snow. In summer, a chorus of wings.

  Either way he ends up thirsty, lumbering back to his glinting cave.

  “Ain’t I a big baby,” he says to no one. “Just stick me on a bottle and I quiet right down.”

  Sometimes he sees things.

  Sometimes he just drinks, muttering sweet nonsense until he passes out blissfully cold.

  EQUIPMENT: MAINTENANCE AND CARE

  Thomas stands alone in his shop. Half an hour until opening—plenty of time to finish up with his knives.

  He’s been alone since the day began. True, Mathilda left everything ready for him, laid out his clothing, his breakfast, called out to wake him as she left for the church. He shouldn’t find fault. After all, she’s only doing her duty by her aunt. As for her other duties— He stops himself. She can’t help it if it’s her time. His mother’s washed-out face flashes before him, the old man’s brute hands on her shoulders, shoving her before him into their room. Never. Not him, not Thomas. He’d do anything rather than force her.

  He runs a hand down the belly of his apron. Snowy white, the starch just right. He smiles. Can’t fault her on laundry either.

  He casts an eye over the tools of his trade—the boning knife with its slender blade, the simple butcher knife, the cleaver on its silver side. His gaze comes to rest on the favourite. Limber and strong, it’s the most well-balanced, most versatile, the butcher’s best friend. His skinning knife, curved like a six-inch smile.

  Thomas’s hands become strangely formal, the left reaching precisely for the steel, the right retreating to smooth the white tail of his coat. He takes up the skinning knife, feels it tilt in his fist as he lays its heel behind the tip of the steel. He holds the pose a moment, then relaxes his wrist, inhales sharply and lets fly, drawing the blade swiftly downward until its tip meets the hilt of the steel. Lift to the near side and begin again, a single stroke from heel to tip. Behind the steel, before the steel, pressure unerring, steady and light. It’s hypnotic—the angle just so, the edge bevelling, coming up true. He closes his eyes as the steel begins softly to sing.

  FLECTAMUS GENUA

  (let us kneel)

  Like many lonely children, August took notice of the natural world. And because he felt himself somehow earth-bound, he paid particular attention to birds.

  For a time there w
as a bounty on crows. Older boys shot them mid-flight or mid-hop, small boys pilfered eggs. It was the first time August thought of earning money, of returning to his mother with coins in his palm. Climbing to the high black nests was the least of his concerns—he had a native understanding of trees, being all twigs himself. He knew the parent birds would dive-bomb, so he wore his forest-green cap with the visor angled down over his eyes.

  Black-winged bodies exploded from the tree the moment he hauled himself up off the ground. As he gained branch after branch, the crows folded themselves and fell at him, cursing. Reaching for the final bough, he felt a flight feather brush his cheek, a curl of claws at the nape of his neck.

  There were three eggs, olive-green with chocolatey spots, huddled together in the dark bundle of sticks. The grownups screeched as August ran a finger over the closest shell, finding it silky and warm to the touch.

  “It’s all right,” he told the crows, then repeated to the eggs, “It’s all right.”

  His pockets empty, he backed his way down to the ground.

  “Witchery witchery witchery,” the yellowthroat sang as it flitted up out of the brush.

  August knelt motionless nearby, the lucky green cap twisted sideways on his head. He was making up his mind to shuffle forward for a better look when the thicket rustled again. The cowbird landed hard on a switch that overarched the yellowthroat’s nest. It stole a look both ways, opened its wings like a cape, and dropped. A smudge of brownish grey, it all but disappeared among the woven weed stalks, grass and hair. August leaned closer. The cowbird was crouching, bobbing every so slightly over the yellowthroat’s four dark eggs.

  “Glug,” it said, “glug glug,” and it nailed him with a glassy stare. A moment more and it lifted like dust on an updraft, picked a course through the branches and was gone.

  August gasped. The cowbird’s abandoned egg was pale, speckled a dozen shades of brown. He couldn’t see how it would pass for a second, let alone survive long enough to hatch.

  SURSUM CORDA

  (lift up your hearts)

  August tells himself it’s Thomas Rose’s recent conversion that’s prompted him to place the newlywed couple first on his list of parish rounds, and to some extent this is true. Something in the butcher’s dull gaze puts him in mind of a renegade ram, one that joins the flock solely to mate, then follows its horns away.

  At least he needn’t worry about the soul of the young wife. He learned a little about Mathilda at the reception, though no one seemed to know her well. She was raised by the Grey Nuns at St. Joseph’s until her aunt finally managed to track her down. You can tell, too—she has something of a novitiate’s way about her. So different from her aunt. Such grace, such natural piety. August lengthens his stride, his mind’s eye lingering on her bowed before him, the crown of her luminous head.

  Rose’s Fine Meats is closed for the evening, but August knocks on the glass door all the same, unaware of the kitchen entrance round back.

  “Over here.” The butcher’s great block of a head appears from a doorway further down, beyond the storefront, in what appears to be a garage. “Father Day.” His broad face moves slowly into a smile. “I’m a little tied up here, but you’re welcome.” He disappears, leaving the door swinging open.

  August pokes his head in just as the butcher tears loose the offal from a hoisted beast, letting it roll forward to land with a slap in a white enamel tub. Thomas looks up from the mess with a grin. “I’d shake hands with you, Father, but—” As if in mock surrender, he holds up his bloodied palms.

  August’s head swims. His eyes fix on the butcher’s rubber boots, two black tree trunks grown up from a bright red field.

  “Mucky business, eh?” says Thomas.

  The carcass swings gently, hung from its hind legs, sawn and spread open wide. August nods speechlessly.

  “To tell you the truth, Father, I love the butchering, but the slaughtering I could do without. I reckon the Indians knew what they were about with those buffalo jumps. No fuss, no muss, and nothing but meat for a mile.”

  “The Gadarene swine,” August murmurs.

  “How’s that, Father?” The butcher bends again to his task.

  “I see your knowledge of the Gospel could use some work.” August clears his throat, adopting a biblical tone. “The miracle of the Gadarene swine. Our Lord and Saviour cast the demons from two men who were possessed, sending them into a nearby herd of swine.” His eyes glaze over with glory. “The swine ran mad. They thundered off a cliff into the sea.”

  “Into the sea?”

  “That’s right, Thomas.”

  The butcher shakes his head. “Terrible waste of pork.”

  August’s expression sours.

  “And another thing, Father, why a whole herd of pigs for only two men? Why not two pigs, an eye for an eye?”

  August collects himself. “I suppose that would have something to do with the vast spiritual difference between we who are made in His image and the common beasts of the field.”

  Thomas lays his knife on a nearby table and turns, proffering an enormous heart. “Are you telling me that couldn’t hold a man’s demons?”

  August takes a stumbling step back. It’s vascular and crude, an oversized portion of meat. He presses a hand to his chest. Somehow he’s always imagined his own as an alpine pool, crystalline, rocky and cold.

  The butcher lowers the heart into a basin of clean water, massaging it, giving it a good rinse. “Hey, looks like we’re in the same business, eh, Father?” He laughs. “Washing out hearts.”

  “I hardly think so,” August says weakly, then thinks viciously, philistine, the word soothing him, lending him strength. He draws himself up. “I’ll be off now.”

  “Okay, Father.” Thomas pats the rump of his kill. “Mathilda’ll be sorry she missed your visit.”

  August flinches ever so slightly at the mention of her name.

  “Unless you’ve already seen her,” Thomas adds.

  “No. Why would you—why do you say that?”

  “Just seems she’s down at the church more often than not.” The butcher’s smile betrays a hint of chagrin. “Makes sense, I guess, her having lived half her life at the rectory. Keeps going back like a bear to its hole.”

  “Very colourfully put. I shouldn’t like to think you regretted your wife’s devotion to God and His Church, Thomas. Nor to her aging aunt, for that matter.”

  “Oh—no. No, Father, I didn’t mean—”

  August turns his back. “I trust I’ll see you on Sunday, Thomas.” He closes the door firmly and righteously on his way out.

  HIS NAME

  Father Day, Mathilda mouths, wide awake beside her husband’s snoring form. She’s spoken it only once during the course of the day, and once doesn’t seem nearly enough.

  “Excuse me, Father Day.” She said it softly, poking her head in through his office door. “My aunt says to tell you your lunch is getting cold.”

  “Yes, yes, all right.”

  She lingered for several seconds, but he refused to look up from his desk.

  “Father Day.” She whispers it aloud now, but it’s his Christian name she really craves, the one his mother must’ve uttered when she first held him in her arms. Mathilda holds her breath, resisting for as long as humanly possible before giving in.

  “August.” It slips out as she’s forced to exhale. A ripe-eared field unfolds in her chest. The butcher saws on at her side.

  IN PRINCIPIO ERAT VERBUM

  (in the beginning was the word)

  With the housekeeper finally quiet above him in her room, August ceases pacing and spreads out his arms. His bedroom is too big. Seminary life has shaped him for narrow sleep—seven years in a room three paces by five—not to mention his bedroom at home, hardly more than a closet, with its rattling window and paper-thin walls.

  He reaches distractedly for his bible. Perhaps Proverbia. Crossing to the window, he thumbs to a random verse.

  Numquid potest homo abscondere ignem in sino suo, Ut vestimenta illius non ardeant? Can a man hide fire in his bosom, and his garments not burn?