The Moonlight Boy | Ferry's Tale # 1

Such an unusual child

"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."

W. B. Yeats

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Andrew Donovan was supposed to be an ordinary child. But the odds were against him.

His parents, Peter and Eileen Donovan, were not quite young when he came into this world. When the baby was born, they were the happiest people in the world. And they had every reason to be so. Little Andrew was a beautiful, chubby baby, with rosy cheeks, soft golden hair, and sparkling blue eyes. The kind you would see on greeting postcards or in the colorful baby posters of the magazines.

His parents had big plans for him. His father, a man with an impressive stature, dark hair and a moustache to match dreamed of him becoming a worker at Pride & Haughty Sawmill, just like him ─ it was, after all, the only factory in town. His mother, a frail woman, with soft hair and gentle eyes, hoped to see him becoming a teacher, a priest or maybe a pharmacist, like Mr. Finch, their neighbour.

Things were simple in Goodharts, the town between the hills, with brick houses and flowery front gardens. The men were workers at the sawmill; the women were housewives. But then again, there were two sorts of housewives ─ the wives of workers and the wives of the teacher, the priest, and the pharmacist. Eileen didn't have the chance to be the wife of a man from the second category, but that didn't bother her too much.

Before Andrew was born, the Donovans lived a decent life. The money was enough to have a roof above their heads and food on the table. Their life was simple and quiet, yet empty without a baby.

They were both hard-working people. Peter worked at the sawmill from dawn to dusk while Eileen was the town's laundry lady. There were always sheets and shirts hanging on the ropes in her backyard. That's why her backyard always looked like a boat swinging on calm seas, its whitest, most pristine sails swollen in the soft breeze. Occasionally, Eileen worked as a housemaid for the wealthy people in town. But that didn't happen too often because there were only two wealthy families in Goodharts: the owners of the sawmill.

As for Andrew, until one month and seven days old, he was the sweetest baby in the whole world. He didn't keep his parents awake ─ not for one night. One whimper was enough for his mother to come running, fed him, then put him back to sleep.

One summer day, Eileen decided to bake a cranberry pie for dinner. It was a fine day, one that would make anyone think life was beautiful. Peter had woken up in a good mood that morning, and he had left for work whistling. There was a nice song playing on the radio in the kitchen, and the gentle breeze brought scents of freshly washed clothes through the open window.

When Eileen was about to make the pie, she discovered she didn't have any sugar. She was certain she had bought a whole pack just the other day. Now, not a single sugar grain could be seen on the bottom of the sugar box. So she decided to borrow some from her neighbour. She was gone for only five minutes, leaving the baby asleep in his crib, without having the slightest suspicion those five minutes were to change Andrew's life forever.

When she came back, something was different. She could feel it in the air. A certain stillness surrounded the house. Everything was silent. There were no birds tweeting and no children's voices in the neighbourhood. No wind's breeze, and no leaf moving in the trees of the backyard. Even the sheets on the ropes were oddly still.

She didn't wait any longer and ran upstairs to check on the baby. She looked at him as if she was seeing her child for the first time. He was awake, looking at her from his crib with the eeriest glare. Even the colour of his eyes was different. The sweet, innocent blue eyes had turned into a dark grey. The crib was ravaged and his small clothes placed awry as if someone had dressed him in a great hurry.