The Moonlight Boy | Ferry's Tale # 1

The name

At the age of six, Andrew had still not uttered a single word, nor did he respond to his own name; or to any of the other pet names his mother had called him over the years, for that matter. Pumpkin, Sweety-Pie, Puppy-Eyes... None of them seemed to fit him.

Until one morning. Andrew climbed over the wardrobe, trying to catch a ray of light on the wall and bring it down. At this sight, Eileen felt the ground slipping from under her feet.

"Andrew! Come down," she said gently, after coming to her senses.

The boy looked down at her with those haunting grey eyes. Then, he spoke in a deep, serious tone that did not sound like the voice of a child at all, "Ferry."

Eileen stumbled backward at the child's voice, and it took her a moment before she'd caught her breath again, enough to repeat, louder this time, "Andrew! Come down this instant!"

Once again, he looked at her with foggy eyes and said, "Ferry."

Call it fear or curiosity, his mother eventually called him loud and clear, "Ferry, come down! Now!"

And as if by magic, the boy came down slowly, which looked like floating to Eileen.

"Ferry?!" his father wondered at dinner time. "Are you out of your mind, woman? The boy already has a name. That sounds like a dog's name. What will people say when they'll hear us calling him that?"

"You can tell people we've named him after my great-grandfather, Ferdinand," Eileen said as natural as can be. "Because he is not going to answer to any other name."

"But you've never had a great-grandfather called Ferdinand," Peter objected.

Eileen was determined — the boy's name was settled, and that was that.

Yet once he was named Ferry, even stranger things started to happen around him. By now, all the people in Goodharts were familiar with the story of the Donovan child, without even seeing him. And many stories were told about him. That he had a deformity, or that he was retarded, savage, and he was biting everyone around. Dr. Goody played his own part in the stories about the unusual child.

One day, when Eileen went to the Pride residence for her cleaning duties, Mrs. Nosey, the neighbor across the street, decided to see the child with her own eyes.

She slowly entered the front garden, sneaked by the house's walls, and cast a glance through the window. To her surprise, the child's appearance didn't trouble her as she would have expected. The child was sitting in the middle of the living room, surrounded by wooden toys. If she had ignored the white skin and hair, he would have looked like any other child. What was odd though was the way he was playing. The boy was laughing and clapping his hands, speaking a language she couldn't understand. He looked like he was watching something or someone only he could see.

After a while, the child got up on his feet and started to spin faster and faster, hands outstretched as if held by someone unseen. His hair was sparkling in the sun invading the room. And the most perfectly combed curls were dancing and bouncing with him. Mrs. Nosey had never seen someone so... peculiar, to say the least.

Startled by the little boy, she took one step too close to the window and a twig snapped under her heavy foot. That was enough for the child to notice her. In a blink of an eye, he turned towards the window, looking back at her in the weirdest way. His eyes, of a bright green, instantly turned into the eyes of a beast. Dark eyes. Haunting eyes. And a raptor-like cry emerged from his throat.

Before she knew it, Mrs. Nosey fell backward, her feet in the air. Stumbled between Eileen's climbing roses, she tried desperately to get up. To no use. The plants felt like they were pulling her down, crawling up her legs. So she chose the handiest way to get out of there ─ on all fours.Back home, she drank a whole glass of brandy from Mr. Nosey's big bottle. Then she rang all her friends to tell them about the strange, troubling event. How much the gossip companions believed her, we might never know. That was mainly because everybody knew Mrs. Nosey was often suffering from various illnesses from which she miraculously recovered only after a few glasses of brandy. Yet the upshot of Mrs. Nosey's adventure had made the local people turn even more curious about the Donovan child.

"How's your boy, Eileen?" Mrs. Donovan was being asked increasingly often.

After mumbling a faint answer, Eileen used to hurry back home. And to Ferry's misfortune, all the windows were soon covered with dark, thick curtains so that no other Mrs. Nosey could peek. But the boy longed for the sun. And after a few days without the sky and the trees, he fell into deep apathy.

Like any mother, Eileen couldn't watch her child suffer. So she found another way to see Ferry happy again. This time, outside, in the backyard.

But first, she had to convince her husband to build a swing. Even with all his complaints, the swing, made of wood and ropes, was ready in two days, and hung in the walnut tree, near the jasmine bush. Eileen then stretched more ropes that surrounded the tree. Sheets, blankets, and enough laundry for an army were now hanging on the ropes.

Thus, on a lovely spring day, little Ferry Donovan was taken out for the first time. There were no words to describe his joy. His eyes sparkled, and his whole body trembled with emotion. Eileen watched him play, yell and run around the walnut tree all day long. Then, he began swinging, ever higher as if almost flying. And ever since that day, right after waking up, Ferry would run straight to the walnut tree in the backyard and play as if he would have done this forever. The wind would blow through the white sheets, making him feel like the most courageous sailor. And the rustle of the leaves sounded somehow otherworldly as if whispering words he thought he knew.

His mother couldn't be happier. His father began spending more time at home and things were slowly going back to normal.

When Ferry turned seven, the miracle happened. All of a sudden, he could talk. But not the baby-gurgling talk. No. He was talking as if he'd been talking his whole life. The boy never ceased to ask questions and wonder about everything around him.

"Mum, what's beyond the sky? Dad, what are the trees whispering when the wind is blowing? Why can't people fly like birds? Where is the sun going when the moon comes out?"

His parents used to stare at him, unable to answer such questions.

"Boy, at your age, other things should be your concern," was his father's usual answer. "Instead of asking foolish questions, you should be crafting with me in the workshop. Or playing ball..." But he couldn't hide the pride that he was finally having a decent conversation with his son, despite the... unusual topics.

As for his mother, the simple fact that Ferry was talking was the most wonderful gift of all. Ferry was almost a normal child. Almost.