The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) by Frank P. Ryan Page A

days of tomfoolery were close to an end. Then, when they arrived at the den the next morning, the situation got a whole lot worse. Padraig was waiting with Kate and Alan, all three sitting on the hummock of grass under the old pear tree in the warming light.
    The old man’s eyes seemed to blaze clearer and bluer than ever as he fixed on them with his wide-open gaze. “Now then, young Mark and Mo! We knowthat something is not altogether right in this situation. I’ve been hearing one or two disturbing things. But I want to hear it from you in person. Will you tell me what ails you?”
    Mark felt his throat tighten, and he couldn’t hide his panic. “Nothing, Sir! There’s nothing wrong.”
    “Ah, now—Sir, is it?”
    Mark tried to bluff it out but there was no escaping those eyes.
    “Your father would do something if you stopped coming here? Meaning it was Grimstone himself that put you up to it?”
    “Muh-muh-muh . . . !”
    Mark put a restraining hand on Mo’s shoulder, to try to shut her up. “Mr. O’Brien—!”
    But Mo shook his hand off. “If yuh-yuh-you won’t tell him, I wuh-wuh-wuh-will.”
    Mark shook his head violently at Mo, his eyes pleading for her to stop.
    Alan confronted Mark eye-to-eye, clearly still rattled from yesterday, in spite of the handshake. “I don’t know what’s going on. But one thing I know for sure is we’ve got to be honest with each other.”
    Mark didn’t care what Alan thought. He wasn’t going to explain just to please Alan. He tried to steer Mo away. But Mo wriggled free. Stuttering painfully, she began to explain. She told them the truth about the so-called Reverend Grimstone, and they listened to her in a shocked silence.
    Kate got up off the grass and put her arm round Mo’s shoulders. “Oh for goodness’ sake—I simply can’t believe it. Is this true, Mark?”
    Mark shrugged. “Mo and I, we grew up being told that our biological fathers were drunkards and druggies.”
    “He cuh-cuh-cuh-cuh-calls us wicked nuh-nuh-nuh . . . nuh-nuh-names.”
    “Such as what?”
    “Mo is half-aboriginal. Grimstone says that she only has to look in the mirror to see the face of her ‘savage whore mother.’”
    Kate gave Mo a huge hug. “You’re mother was nothing of the sort. If you look anything like your mother, she must have been gorgeous.”
    Mo’s face fell, her fingers writhing in a heap. “Muh-Muh-Muh-Mark and I . . . we—we wuh-wuh-wuh—!”
    “What she’s trying to say,” Mark added quietly, “is we were abandoned. Tossed away like pieces of rubbish on Sir’s doorstep—me at about eighteen months old and Mo less than a year old.”
    “Sure and that’s awful.”
    “You don’t know the half of it! You really want to know what he would say to Mo when he felt like hurting her?” Mark smiled, but there was no humor in his smile. “He’d say, ‘Now why do you think your mother couldn’t stand the sight of you the very moment you were born?’ He’d tell Mo that everybody hated her, even when she was a baby, because she didn’t look like a Christian child. ‘Anyone can see that at a glance,’ he’d say, pinching her cheek so hard his nails wouldleave a mark. ‘Go to the mirror,’ he’d say. ‘Go take a good long look at your gypsy whore face.’”
    Kate just hugged Mo tighter.
    Alan was outraged. “Who the hell is this guy?”
    “The Reverend R. Silas—familiarly known as Arseless—Grimstone. Our adoptive father!”
    “Your mother . . . your adoptive mother . . . couldn’t she stop it?”
    “What? Dear sweet Bethal—the werewolf?”
    Padraig shook his head. “That blackguard sounds worse than a Puritan.”
    “What he really is . . . there’s a better name for it,” Mark hissed between his clenched teeth. “And ‘Reverend’ isn’t the word I’d use.”
    Kate said quietly, “He must be mad.”
    Mo’s face fell. “Cuh-cuh-clever—clever and wuh-wuh-wuh-wicked more than muh-muh-mad!”
    Mark added,