A Murder of Magpies (30 page)

“Like I said, I have a promise to keep.”

Sister Tremblay glided down the hall. I should’ve called Emory. He knew how to handle
her whereas my first instinct was to trip her.

I checked my watch. Heidi should have arrived five minutes ago and had to be wondering
what the hold-up was. I headed outside to my half-sister’s car. My reflection in the
side mirror appeared spooked, but Heidi didn’t notice as she switched the stereo from
bouncy kids’ tunes to the Carole King album I gave her for Christmas. Anything was
better than “I’m a Little Teapot” set to a reggae beat.

“Want some coffee? Black, right?” Heidi asked and pulled into a drive-thru. She placed
our order, and we waited. She peered at Oliver sleeping in his car seat. Sunlight
streamed through the van’s windows, glinting off Heidi’s red hair. There weren’t too
many bright days in Black Orchard, not during the barren winter.

“Emory called this morning,” she declared, “and I have to say I was taken aback. He
said you approached him about doing an apprenticeship. I had no idea.”

I wanted to work for Emory, but if things got worse for them in Black Orchard, I didn’t
know what I’d do. Giving me an extra second to prepare an answer, Heidi passed my
drink to me, and I sipped the bitter coffee. “Did you know Emory was on the news and
written about in magazines? That stuff doesn’t matter to me, but I’m telling you ’cause
he’s that good at his work.” Heidi’s lips pursed. Time to flip her to my side. I said,
“Heidi, I can do this. Emory said he’d show me. He’s been training me since I began
working for him.”

She traced a fingernail along the steering wheel and shifted to flicking the pine
tree-shaped air freshener dangling from the mirror. “I’ve been getting calls about
the Silvers, Ward.”

“Whatever you’ve heard—”

“Are they in trouble?”

I stopped my knee from bouncing. “Nobody’s perfect.”

She quieted and focused on the road. At a red light, she put her hand on my shoulder.
“I care about you. Starting over was part of why we let you live with us.”

Starting over was why the Silvers might have to leave Black Orchard. Was I willing
to give up everything Heidi and Chris gave me to run with Vayda’s family? Was that
even an option? I’d been a runaway before…

“I know what I’m doing with the Silvers,” I said.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

God, I hoped so.

At the house, Bernadette waited by the door and headed for her special spot under
a spruce tree. Her wagging tail thanked me for letting her out, and I tied her collar
to a lead attached to the porch. Bernie moaned as I massaged the stiff fur on her
back. The dog needed a bath. Badly. I pushed her brows from her face, and she panted,
happily dazed enough to make me snicker. She liked to watch the ravens from her basket
even on cold days, though she usually whined to come inside after ten minutes. Time
enough for me to clean up the mess of scrap metal I’d promised Heidi I’d sort last
night.

The corner of the driveway I’d high-jacked for metal sculpture had grown to taking
up the bulk of the driveway, leaving only a narrow crevice to squeeze the cars through
to get to the garage. The cold had done nothing to distract me from sculpture. Looming
in sharp-edged curves and spires, I’d crafted trees from refurbished copper. A forest
of dangerous metal. Scars twisting on my hands from all the times I’d cut myself,
the roots of these trees were in me. Maybe that was why I didn’t bend once I’d made
up my mind.

The door leading from the open garage into the kitchen clattered. As Heidi carried
out a bag of papers for recycling, a shrillness in her voice caught my ear as the
wind lifted her words.

“Kate, do you hear yourself? That’s nuts…I don’t care what people say. Ward’s around
them all the time. The Silvers are decent people.” Her face darkened as she listened
then hit the disconnect button, standing with one hand to her forehead and the other
pressed into the small of her back.

I placed a sheet of copper onto a stack by one of the sculptures. “Who was that?”

“Kate Halvorsen, Chloe’s mom,” Heidi replied. “She’s the fifth person to call today
about the Silvers. There’s an informal concerned citizens meeting tomorrow night.
What is this about, Ward? Emory said they’re Romani, but Kate said Vayda’s a witch.
An actual witch.”

I crossed my arms. What did it say about me that the first response in my mind was
the canned one I’d learned from Jonah and Vayda? “People don’t like anything out of
the ordinary.”

Heidi nodded. I knew she believed in giving people the benefit of a doubt.

“Why don’t you get Bernadette and give me a hand with dinner?” she asked. “Before
all these phone calls, I’d invited the Silvers over. They need someone in this town
on their side.”

The way she rested her hand on my shoulder, my half-sister and I weren’t close, but
she could be trusted. I split off from her and walked around the house to the front
porch.

Bernadette’s wicker basket was empty.

“Come here, Dog!” I whistled. The end of her tie-out coiled like a frozen cobra in
the snow. No sign of her. I jogged an oblong circle around the house, searching the
woods marking the property line. Nothing, just some paw prints by the usual tracks
left by the cars’ tires and footprints on the snow.

My hand yanked open the front door and I called into the house as Chris’ Jaguar pulled
into the driveway. “Bernadette’s gone!”

Retracing her tie-out and doddering trail, the only prints I saw were within the length
of the leash. If she’d gotten off her lead, she’d have left a sign.

Chris waited with Heidi on the front porch. “You didn’t find her yet? She never goes
beyond that pine tree.”

“She’s missing,” I said, again scanning the woods. The sun was lowering. Occasionally,
coyotes and even a badger crept along the trees since I moved to Black Orchard, but
what if something else stalked those woods, waiting until nightfall to emerge from
its den?

Heidi nudged her husband’s arm. “You go out, Chris. Emory and the twins will be here
for dinner soon. I’m sure they’ll help us. We’ll find her.”

Chris took a flashlight since a gray dog blended in all too easily with the snow at
dusk. He walked along the evergreens, called her name, and then headed out in his
Jaguar. I slumped on the front steps. I shouldn’t have left her alone. She was old.
She was mostly blind and didn’t hear well. No wonder Drake didn’t trust me with a
pet. I couldn’t care for anything. On nights when my insomnia was bad and I paced
the house, I wasn’t alone. Bernadette paced with me.

Headlights on the driveway. The Chevy’s tires ground to a halt and the Silvers approached
the house, a trio of black hair and shadowy faces, but Heidi got to them first, out
of my earshot. Vayda’s expression fell, and she slipped away from her family. Her
hair was more than a foot shorter than it’d been when she came to school that morning.

“You cut it off,” I remarked, pointing to the waves falling at her chest. “Looks nice.
Kind of weird.” Jonah’s hair was also shorter, barely below his ears.

“Your dog’s missing and you want to talk about my hair?” she asked.

“Well, it’s better than worrying about what could’ve happened to Bernadette.”

Emory squeezed my shoulder before he followed Heidi inside. I stayed in the cold dusk
with Jonah, Vayda, and a strange weight in the air between us. I should’ve been out
finding Bernadette. My legs moved with speed over the snow. One more sweep around
the border of the woods. Nothing. Nothing at all but for a weird glimpse between Jonah
and Vayda. They were talking and didn’t even open their mouths.

“What?” I asked. “Do you guys know something?”

Vayda reached for the ends of her hair to twirl them on her fingers but missed, still
not used to the new length. She backed off from the porch and walked the driveway,
pausing alongside each of the metal trees I’d hammered together.

“I told you about Nyx, the cat in Montana,” she murmured.

“Sis,” Jonah said, “you don’t think—”

Her eyes shimmered with tears. “Can’t you feel the energy they left behind?”

He dropped his head. “Yes.”

Something cold and wet opened up inside my gut. They knew what happened to my dog.
Bernadette was gone because of them? Because I wouldn’t give up on Vayda? My hands
began to shake, the cold inside me surging with a tingling that boiled.

“Where’s my dog?” I placed my hands on Vayda’s shoulder, turning her toward me. “Was
it Marty?”

“Chloe,” she whispered.

My chin shuddered. Fury. The prickling shocks of electricity between my palms and
her shoulders felt like hundreds of needles piercing the same spots on my flesh.

“I left Bernadette alone for ten minutes, maybe fifteen, and that girl came and took
her?” My voice cracked with the question, didn’t even sound like me but someone more
fragile.

“This isn’t your fault,
gadjo
,” Vayda assured me, dropping her stare to the ground. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known
you could be hurt because of me—”

“Stop! Just stop!”

My lungs began to close up the longer I kept my hands on Vayda. Her palms glowed pale
blue-white. I lowered my head, my cheek pressing against Vayda’s. All I could think
was how that dog was the first thing in Black Orchard to like me and I let her down.

More fury. Now guilt. Now sadness.

A tornado of emotion blowing me apart.

“Ward, let go of me,” Vayda whispered, begged. “You’re going to get hurt if you hang
on.”

Her hands crackled with electricity, and a fever-red blush colored her skin. She stepped
back, staggering, and fell to her knees. Jonah and I were on either side of her, but
he blocked my hands from taking hold of his sister.

Words from a night in December, the night of Jonah’s assault in Fire Sales, reechoed
in my skull.
People’s emotions emit energy. There’s something in me pulling that energy. I shut
it down as best I can unless someone reaches to me.
She hadn’t been able to shut me down this time. I’d overloaded her. Jonah held Vayda’s
hand and lifted his free one, eyes scrunched shut.

In a sudden gust, the forest of metal trees upended, a storm of edges and spikes that
could slice and spear. They lay against the snowy ground like deadly playthings, and
then Jonah made a beckoning gesture with his fingers. The sculptured trees righted
themselves again.

Somehow, someway, Jonah and Vayda worked together, sucking and expelling energy.

If Jonah was a gun and could fire off, then Vayda gave him the ammo.

“I have to go,” Jonah said as he rose to his feet. “I promise, Ward. I’ll make this
right.”

I crouched on the ground beside Vayda, not taking my sight off Jonah. “You’ve done
enough damage.”

“I’m gonna get your dog back. I swear to it.”

Jonah disappeared into the dusky trails of sunset growing longer across the driveway.
The Chevy’s engine sputtered as Jonah drove away.

“Where’s your brother?” Emory asked as he came onto the porch to investigate the noise.

“Looking for Bernadette,” Vayda replied. It wasn’t a lie.

“It’s too dark to find her tonight. Call the boy and tell him to come back, Magpie.”

Vayda furrowed her brow. “He doesn’t have his cell phone.”

Emory reached for the screen door. “Like either of you needs a phone.”

Vayda and I waited on the front step, her hand in mine. My lungs ached, wheezing with
each breath, but she hugged me close. The tighter her hold, the stronger the calm
she poured into me, making me numb so time meant nothing. The sky blackened and night
birds squawked as they swooped around the trees. Chris returned from his hunt for
Bernadette, dog-less since he didn’t have the lead Jonah did, but Vayda and I remained
on the porch.

“It’s stupid to get this worked up over a dog,” I muttered.

“No, it’s not.” Vayda brought my hand up to her mouth and kissed my knuckles. “You
have no idea how sorry I am. This is what it’s like to be with someone like me, Ward.”

I knew that.

Knowing and living were different though.

“I’m not going back to school,” she said. “At least not for a while.”

“Because of the bullshit with Chloe and—”

“I’ve been suspended.” Her voice was hoarse. “Jonah’s out, too. Monsignor came to
the physics lab after you skipped. Jonah got into it with Marty, shoving each other.
Monsignor believed it when some girls said I started it. There’d been too many problems
with my brother and me. Marty, Chloe, they did it. They got rid of us.”

“What?” I didn’t believe it. “But that’s not fair. It’s not true.”

“Cardinal rule: It doesn’t matter what’s true; all that matters is what people want
to believe. They want to believe we come from the devil.”

It was so unfair. No one would listen to her and Jonah. I held her closer and said
a silent prayer.

After a while, two pairs of headlights crept up the driveway. The Chevy followed a
car I didn’t recognize. Jonah hopped out of his dad’s car and charged over to the
driver’s door of a blue sedan, practically pulling Danny out of his seat.

“Hand her over,” Jonah ordered.

“I’m getting there,” Danny croaked from behind a puffy lower lip. Had Jonah done that
to him? Something told me that was hardly the worst Jonah’s fists saw while he was
gone.

Danny pulled open the door to the backseat and hunched inside to retrieve a bundled
up blanket. He kept his eyes on the ground as he trudged to where I waited on the
front step, arms offering up the blanket. I hesitated to take it. What if I unwrapped
it and Bernadette was—

The jingle of tags and a snort flooded my veins with relief. I uncovered Bernadette’s
head and felt the warmth of her tongue licking my hand.

“My dog,” I choked.

“Tell him what you did,” Jonah barked.

Danny didn’t delay. The words tumbled out of him like rocks sliding down an avalanche.
“Be careful of Chloe. Marty’s bad enough, but that girl’s full-on psycho. Marty called
to brag that he and Chloe had your dog, and I heard her saying what she planned to
do.” He shuddered. “She’s lost her mind. I couldn’t let them do that and was gonna
bring the dog back, but…”