A Murder of Magpies (24 page)

“Might want to visit the nurse for that headache, Sister,” Jonah said, his lips curling.

I stopped my mouth from falling open. He didn’t…Yeah, he really did.

He inched closer to her. “You might have some deal worked out with my father, but
you don’t have one with me. Think about that before I catch you skulking around again.”

Holding her head, Sister Tremblay steadied herself against a locker. Jonah backed
away, leaving me to gawk over my shoulder before he pulled me down the hallway. We
slipped into the church sanctuary. The stained-glass windows didn’t let in any light,
and only cold streamed inside. All the warmth had gone out of the woodwork, and the
church felt empty. In Minnesota, I knew churches. Soup kitchens didn’t ask questions
about why you came; they simply fed you. The nuns cared. The priest ate with Drake
and me. Sister Tremblay was the opposite of them, and this sanctuary didn’t offer
any comfort.

Jonah and I sat near rows of votive candles. Drake used to light candles for his buddies
who hadn’t made it out alive. I was too furious to light one for him.

“What’s the story with Tremblay?” Pulling out a prayer book from the shelf in the
pew, I tried to sound nonchalant while I paged through until I returned it, grabbing
for his highlighted copy of
Jane Eyre
beside me.

“Sister Tremblay’s from Hemlock. That’s a problem.”

“Does your dad know?”

Jonah rubbed his thumb and middle finger together. “He’s known for months, since he
had to bail me out of trouble before Halloween. He claims they have an arrangement,
but we’d be stupid to trust she’s not talking to anyone back home.”

“Well, does she know what you can do?”

“As I said, she’s a problem.”

After how he acted with Marty, I didn’t want to know what he’d do if Sister Tremblay
tried hurting his family. What stopped her from contacting the Georgia police? What
did she want?

As if hearing my questions, a wisp of smoke rose where Jonah rubbed his fingers together.

***

Neither Jonah nor I said anything to Vayda about my fight with Marty, though I was
sure she’d guessed something from the marks on my face. After the final bell, I walked
her and Jonah outside where Emory and the Chevy waited in the pick-up line. I hated
seeing her with her head down, the weight of her worry growing heavier every time
I saw her, and I didn’t want to add to that burden.

As the Chevy pulled away, the tires of a silver car squealed as it lurched out of
its parking spot and cut into the pick-up line. I caught sight of the driver steering
erratically to try to catch up to the Chevy.

Chloe had been waiting. Stalking. Now following. Jonah swore he hadn’t talked to her
in weeks. What the hell was going on?

Heidi’s minivan made its way through the pick-up line, and I climbed into the car.
As Oliver tried to gnaw the ear off a teddy bear, Heidi drove through the streets
of Black Orchard. The roads were winding and slick, everything glassy and frozen from
a new coating of sleet. Ice cased the black trees, the cracks in the cobblestones,
all of it preserved until the spring melt. My head was a mess: fighting with Marty,
weirded out by Chloe, still angry from this morning. All I could do was try to remember
to stay calm.

“How was your day?” she asked.

I steeled my jaw to avoid snapping. The hours at school should’ve been enough to clear
my head, to give me the cool to be rational, but I want to rip into her. To scream.
The anger I felt as I pawed through that box from the attic—how could she have kept
such a secret?

As soon as we reached home, Heidi became serious. “We need to talk.”

I unbuckled Oliver from his car seat. He tugged on my hair and giggled, but I couldn’t
even pretend to smile and carried him inside where he could go crazy with a cabinet
full of Tupperware. He toddled across the floor and brought me the lid for a skillet
and a wooden spoon, and I showed him to the pantry. Maybe I’d let him tear off the
labels from all the cans, see how Heidi would like that.

“I got a call from the head nun today, Ward,” Heidi said as she refilled Oliver’s
cup. “What’s this about you fighting with Marty Pifkin?”

Now that she was with me, playing dumb, I scrunched my hand into a fist and considered
smashing my knuckles through the plaster wall by the table.

“Like you give a fuck about me.”

Bernadette scuttled up the stairs after me, her tags tinkling like chimes. Her breath
stank of kibble as she snuffled my face while I crouched on the floor by my bed.
Busy, dog
. I waved her away, but she chewed the cuff of my jeans as I dragged the box from
under my bed.

Standing in the doorway, Heidi covered her mouth. “Where’d you find that?”

“You know damn well it was in the attic. Guess you thought I’d never snoop there.
Don’t you know I can’t be trusted?”

My nostrils flared, and I shoved the box into her arms. She dropped it to the floor
where the lid popped off. “You weren’t supposed to find this.”

“He was my dad, too! This was my life!” I hollered, inches from her face. “Didn’t
I deserve to know?”

I plummeted to my knees and chucked the box lid across the room, narrowly missing
Heidi’s head. Bernadette nested in my lap, but the dog’s elderly gentleness did nothing
to soothe me. I flipped over the box, dumping paper scraps and photos annotated in
Drake’s cat-scratch writing. One note dated a year ago caught my attention. I scanned
it before wadding it in a ball and whipping it at Heidi.

Angel—Any chance your brother could stay with you? I’m not well, probably the flu.
Congrats on your pregnancy!—Drake

A letter from May was clipped to a photograph. I was sitting on a mattress on the
floor, wearing several layers to stay warm. The air wasn’t frigid, but I was. That
apartment always left me cold. The drafts and the rats and sounds of sickness all
around, and all I’d ever prayed for was for an escape. A cigarette hung from my lip,
and I’d buzzed my hair. I looked like hell, skinny with acne on my cheeks, scowling
that Drake had the nerve to take my picture.

Angel—Please write back. I’ve been a shit, but I love you. Doc says I’m nearing end
stage hep C. Puking blood tons. For Christ’s sake, take Ward. I’m too sick to deal
with him. Don’t forget him.—Drake.

I’d known my dad was sick but assumed it was drugs. If I’d known he was dying…I coughed
into the crook of my arm. “How come I didn’t know about this?”

Heidi squatted beside me. She and I shared more features than I’d first thought. Her
hair was lighter red, almost orange, but our faces were identical, foxlike around
large, hollowed eyes and a straight nose. Gathering Drake’s letters, she stammered,
“I’d heard Drake’s lies and excuses before. I didn’t tell you after he died because
what good would it—”

Her voice broke.

“He begged you to take me!” My throat felt like hands had wrung my airway. “I was
alone for months after he was arrested! It was a nightmare! I was hungry and dirty
and sick! You left me there!”

Heidi wiped tears off her cheeks. “Try to see my side. I hadn’t seen you since you
were a baby. I didn’t know you. I expected you to be a druggie like Drake. You saw
the picture he sent. You didn’t look clean, and I couldn’t have that near my child.”

I pulled up the right side of my shirt and displayed a scar below my armpit. The scar
had been there for years and hadn’t changed, a shiny pink circle no bigger than a
dime.

“You see this? Drake left me with some skank who stubbed out a cigarette on me ’cause
I spilled cereal. I was eight years old.” Dropping my shirt, I snarled, “Last winter,
I had pneumonia, and the old man decided scoring smack was more important than spending
four bucks on my antibiotics. My lungs still ain’t right, and you damn well know it.”

She put out her hand to touch my arm. I swatted her away and stood. No fucking way.
She was
not
going to comfort me.

“You left me to rot with that bastard! He was dying, and you ignored it! No one told
me a thing! He promised he’d get clean, but it was another lie!”

My muscles cramped, spent from yelling. Like I’d had enough and had nothing more.
Same as when I got the news he was gone. Vacant. Blunted.

Heidi lowered her eyes. “I can’t change the past, Ward.”

Was that all she could say? A new dose of electric venom streamed into my blood. I
flung my drawing pad from the top of the dresser. An empty glass I’d forgotten to
take out to the dishwasher. Thrown. Smashed. A stack of books. Thrown. Smashed. The
pages came loose and fluttered out between Heidi and me. Everything on top of the
dresser, from my stolen iPod to a candleholder I’d sculpted, I threw everything until
plastic shrapnel, glass shards, and torn papers littered the floor of my room. My
breath came in rasps that made a racket high in my throat.

“Get out of my sight,” I managed between huffs.

Maybe she knew I couldn’t take anymore, not now, but she ducked her head and left
my room. I patted Bernadette’s head, and she yawned so widely that she nearly unhinged
her jaw, her tongue curling like a question mark. I tucked her under my arm and climbed
onto my bed. She burrowed between my pillows and touched her moist nose to mine.

Hours disappeared as I slept.

Knocking on my door roused me enough to raise my head. My clock read seven forty-two.
I’d missed dinner. Not that I was hungry. The knocking persisted.

“Go away, Chris!” I pulled my pillow over my head.

The door clicked and swung open. I grabbed whatever I could reach on my nightstand,
a coffee mug, and chucked it in the direction of the door. No crashing sound followed.

“You’ve got a hell of an arm,” Vayda remarked.

I threw aside my pillow and sighed at the girl closing my door. She held the coffee
mug and avoided the shattered remnants on my floor before sitting on my bed. Her hair
was loose and wavy, and her shirt was lacey and tight in the right places. The cold
had finally gotten to her so that she’d broken out some dark corduroys instead of
her long skirts, slung low on her waist to show off the wide curve of her hips. Even
as pissed as I was, I could still appreciate the view.

She handed me a thin rectangle wrapped with brown paper. “Happy birthday a day early.”

“It’s been a lousy day.”

“So Heidi said. She called and asked if I’d talk some sense into you.”

I set Bernadette on the floor. The dog snorted at Vayda before flopping onto a towel
I left in front of my closet. Vayda consoled her with a chin scratch and took her
spot beside me. I mirrored her body with my own. She grazed her fingertips along my
forearm, and trembling, I allowed her to draw cool trails over my skin.

My hands traced her backbone under her shirt. Electric shocks. She kissed my neck,
arms embracing me, my fingers finding the softness of her thick body and holding her
close. I popped open the button of her pants and slid my hand inside.

“Not now,
gadjo
. Another time.”

Deflating, I lifted my hands from her. Over the last few weeks, we’d gone plenty further
than kissing and handfuls of skin. The places our mouths had discovered on each other,
places I hadn’t kissed before, we’d treaded the line of sex yet hadn’t crossed it.
I wanted to. Badly. I wanted to obliterate that line.

“It wouldn’t be right when you’re hurting so much,” she said.

I rolled onto my side with my back to her. “You have no idea.”

She wrapped her arm around my hips, her chest to my back. Wave after wave of cool
splashed against me.

I closed my eyes. “Take it, Vayda. Please. Can’t you make me forget?”

“I could, but you need those memories.”

“Then get in my head. I need to know what it’s like when you’re in there.”

The wait for her to respond felt like an hour but was only a few seconds.

“We need someplace private.”

“We are in private,” I said.

“I mean
really
private, Ward.”

I knew where to go and tossed her a sweater. Then I retrieved two blankets from my
closet before sliding open the window to heave the blankets onto the roof.

“Are you touched in the head?” she protested. “I said private, not freezing. The roof’s
slippery from ice. Your ass will fall, and I’ll laugh.”

“Won’t happen,” I promised. My fingers clenched her wrist. “Come with me.”

Hesitantly, she followed as I balanced one foot on the roof outside my window and
the other on the sill. Her legs were coltishly unsteady as she adjusted to the slant.
I hoisted myself onto the peak above the dormer window and guided her to my side.
We settled with our bodies snuggled under one blanket. The night was bitter cold and
clear. The moon was bright. The stars glimmered like grains of sand on a black beach.
To the north, shades of green and violet-pink tinted the blue-black sky above the
trees.

“Wow, all the colors.” She pointed to the spectral fire across the sky.

“The aurora borealis. Northern lights. Pretty, huh?”

She gazed out across the woods, and a loud ripple of pops burst from her hands as
she cracked her knuckles. Powerful hands for a short girl. Powerful hands for anyone,
really.

“What kind of boy hides out on his rooftop?” she asked.

“The kind who wants to escape,” I replied. “I did the same thing at my old apartment.”

She piled a blanket behind me and eased me into lying back. I didn’t object or hesitate,
especially not when she climbed on top of me to straddle my hips, one hand on my heart.

“Are you ready?” she whispered.

“Always.”

She bent forward until our foreheads touched.

Our eyes locked.

A slice of white flame—I yelped as she entered my mind. Flesh pulled taut and prickled
with thousands of shivers. The cold filling me was all-encompassing, a good cold,
like being five years old and pitching my whole body into a snow bank. Skies rumbled
with lightning as storms crashed inside me. The chill of Vayda’s mind spread me open,
a collision that rocked and groaned.