Flock (22 page)

Downstairs, my mom had left a message stating that she and Stanley were at the hospital but would be home in time for pre-dance photos. With the house to myself for the entire day, I holed up in my room, writing notes regarding every piece of advice I’d received from Hulda, what I knew of the other worlds and their portals, what was bequeathed to me by my
amma
— her lullaby, for instance, and the cameo — and both vision quests and their potential meaning. Those, I felt, were the most important. More than once I thought about reaching out for help: Hulda, Ofelia, Jinky, Jack. Above all Jack. I was ready to. And ready to admit that I was unequal to this challenge, unworthy of my gifts, and responsible for so much that was amiss: Leira’s not-meant-for-this-world frailty, the presence of a merman among us, and the looming threat of Brigid’s domination scheme.

At the end of this exercise, I’d filled a good portion of a composition book, my hand was cramped, and I had come to only one conclusion. If the goddess Frigg was rallying her maidens against a threatening “evil,” I was in — we all were in — seriously deep trouble. Trouble it was up to me, and me alone, to fix.

In the late afternoon, I turned my attention to the dance. Plenty of girls, I knew, had spent the day at the salon getting pampered. I seriously gave my hair a long look before deciding I could not get away without washing it.

As I was putting an iron to the last of a few curls, my mom called out, “Knock, knock,” as she ascended the last few steps to my attic space.

After filling me in on Leira’s holding-stable condition, she fussed over my dress and said all the things a mother is supposed to. And, in spite of the overall funk I was in and entitled to, I did like the way my dress had turned out. What was once a silvery chain-mail jacket was now a scoop-necked bodice that shimmered like glass. And the gauzy, light putty-colored skirt had its own gossamer qualities.

“It’s gorgeous,” my mom said. She lifted one of the skirt’s layers and then stood back and watched it drop into place. “Your creations always amaze me. A talent from your father’s side of the family, I have to admit.”

I’d inherited enough from my mom’s side, with both the Stork and selkie lineage dropping from her branches of the family tree. Besides, there had never been any question where my style gene came from. My mom had no less than four pairs of Birkenstocks, while the clerks at the Coach store at Santa Monica Place knew my grandmother by name. No need to consult the Human Genome Project on this DNA sequence.

“Thank you. And it didn’t even cost that much.” I knew that feature of the dress would impress my number-crunching mom.

We heard the old-fashioned
dong
of the front doorbell.

“That must be Jack,” my mom said, springing to action. “Give it a minute or two and then make your entrance.”

So maybe I’d sold my mom short on the vogue gene; the ability to premeditate an entrance required some innate understanding of style.

I did give it a few minutes, but not many. I had a sudden onset of restless body syndrome that produced in me an irrepressible urge to get the evening under way —“over with” being the sentiment I couldn’t quite admit to at the time.

Jack held up his side of the requisite girl-enters-and-boy-goes-gummy equation. Another thing to add to the growing list of things for which I could count on him.

“You look beautiful,” he said, coloring. He was always a little different, more reserved, in front of the parental units.

My mom and Stanley did their best to get the obligatory photos quickly so that we could be on our way. My mom did want a few snapped in front of the house. We didn’t have too many of it in its still-pink capacity, and she thought it would be fun “in the future” to remember it that way. Personally, I thought it would be fun to have a future at all, but I didn’t bring that up while we were posing for posterity.

Until I stepped into the transformed gym that evening, I wasn’t sure I had ever fully registered the dance’s “Starry, Starry Night” theme. The celestial decor created an alternate world. As if I needed another of those! But, once again, I had to hand it to the decorations committee for an above-and-beyond effort. A thousand glittery stars and orbs hung from the ceiling. Wall art consisted of backlit dark canvases depicting the various constellations: Orion, the hunter; Canis Major, his hunting dog; Aquarius, the water bearer; Pegasus, the winged horse; and many more.

While the event was fresh and we were settling into the occasion, Jack and I did the auto pilot routine. I talked dresses and hair with the girls I knew and liked, a much larger and still-growing group compared to the year before.

Penny looked radiant in her pink. Her loose updo held an array of shimmery star pins, which looked gorgeous against her red locks. I was more than a little surprised, and oddly miffed, to see the cameo — the pink lady?— at her throat. It looked lovely and belonged with the dress, but I still felt peevishly proprietary about the piece. I only hoped that Penny’s procurement of it had been an act of defiance.
That
would, at the minimum, be a mitigating factor.

Jinky looked great, too. Her long, black mandarin-style tunic was exotic among the pastels and brights. And with her full complement of nose and brow rings, as well as her dramatically penciled eyes, she was striking while fully retaining her bad-girl image. I kept looking around for her date, but she seemed to be hanging only with Shauna and a couple of her track friends until it hit me like a boot to the face. Shauna. How had I not seen that one coming?

Jack, over in guy world, talked football and lamented the stuffy shirts and ties. For that first part of the evening, our two separate spheres were like a moving Venn diagram, intersecting at points, veering off for a while without a single point of contact, until eventually merging.

The first few songs played by the DJ had been top-forty and lame. At last he slowed it down, and I immediately tugged on Jack’s arm. For all his protests about not liking to dance, the guy definitely wasn’t opposed to a little rubbing of bodies and long, hot kisses. And nothing like moving to the center of a mash-up of couples to avoid notice. At moments like these, with Jack’s body fitting into every contour of my own, I was strengthened by our bond and practically brought to my knees by his strong hands around my waist and the intensity of his gaze.

When the tempo picked back up, we returned to our corner, where I was surprised to see Penny standing alone.

“Where’d Marik go?” I asked Penny.

I’d only had one brief look at him earlier — kitted out in all black — before he hurried away from our group with his head down.

“That’s the question of the day.” Penny searched the room, pinching her brows together as she did so. At that moment Beyoncé’s “All the Single Ladies” started up.

“Come on,” I said, dragging her toward the dance floor. “We’ll show the guy what he’s missing.”

One of the best things about Penny was that, given the opportunity, she could be over-the-top, girly-girl silly. We worked that song,
oh-oh
ing and ring-finger wagging, until finally even Jinky succumbed and joined in for some booty-shaking. I noticed Jack up against the wall with his arms crossed and a bemused expression skewing his mouth to the side. I’d hear about the display, suffer a comment or two, but he had enjoyed the show. His foot may have even tapped to the beat.

We returned to our group, and, to my surprise, Marik was still nowhere to be found. He and Penny were due to take part in the pageantry that was about to start.

“Would the members of this year’s Homecoming court please assemble behind the stage?” the DJ said over the microphone. His announcement produced another anxious swiping left-to-right glance from Penny.

“Go. I’ll send him to the stage if he shows up here,” I said, giving her the gentlest of nudges in that direction.

Jack and I got into a conversation about couples matching their Homecoming attire. He was adamantly opposed; I was slightly more accepting, provided hot pink was removed from the men’s side of the equation.

A stocky guy looking miserable in a fuchsia-satin bow tie trudged past. I ducked behind Jack’s back to hide my fit of giggles.

While sheltered by Jack and admiring — as if I had never seen them before, had never run my hand across their sinewy blades — his broad shoulders, something went
thwomp
against the door behind me. We were standing near an exit. They were your standard industrial-purpose metal doors. Jack and I turned, inspecting the area, but as the sound had come from outside, we ignored it.

Besides, at that moment, something else caught my attention. Across the room, a figure darted in and out of the crowd. Only Marik had that odd combination of bulk and lightness of being.

“Would Marik Galdursson please report to the stage?” the DJ announced. The timing was uncanny.

I watched for Marik, and again saw him dodging between packs of kids, but he was moving away from the stage and out of the gym entirely.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said to Jack. Having struck up a conversation with one of his football buddies from last year’s team, he waved me off distractedly.

I stepped out of the gym and into the long hallway that connected it to the school. I heard another
thump
from outside, but this one sounded like something hitting the roof. I barely registered it, though, as I spied Marik rounding a corner ahead of me.

“Marik!” I called out.

He turned, looked at me, and then continued, picking up his pace, even.

“Marik!” I yelled louder, because when someone is clearly running away from you, that second shout-out makes all the difference.

He was heading toward the main building, away from the field house. I hiked up my gauzy skirt, so not designed for a chase scene, and took off after him.

He was wickedly fast for someone who was new to legs. Nor did it help that I had four-inch backless sandals on.

I’d never have caught up with him if he hadn’t suddenly doubled over, presumably in pain.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, coming to an arm-flailing stop at his side. “Didn’t you hear me? Plus, they’re calling for you up onstage.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Marik said, his eyes focused on the floor. “None of that matters; the dance is over.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “What are you talking about? It only just started.”

Again, something smacked against the building, a window this time.

“Do you hear it?” Marik said, groaning to a stand. “It’s wrong. Very wrong. And have you not felt the darkness arriving?”

I looked up to the window at the very end of the corridor. It did appear particularly gloomy for early evening. The sky, in fact, had a purplish quality to it.

“What is it?” I asked.

Marik clutched at his chest. “A presence. And it’s close, very, very close.”

A presence? I thought immediately of the scene at the Asking Fire.

Again, something, a muffled
whomp,
crashed against the building.

And then all hell broke loose. From the hallway outside the gym, I heard a shriek. Marik muttered some foreign expletive-sounding remark and began jogging in that direction.

Wising up, I slipped my sandals off and started after him. In the wide hallway outside the gym, a door to the outside had been propped open and kids were streaming out. Some were screaming, and some held their arms up, shielding their faces. Marik and I followed them into the parking lot, where littered on the ground were lifeless dark blobs. I couldn’t quite make out what they were until something dropped from the sky just a few feet from where Marik and I stood. A bird. A dead bird.

I felt my throat constrict. My breath came in rasping, painful drags. Another bird landed behind me. Its wings crumpled awkwardly and its beak open as if in mid-caw.

And now the presence that Marik had felt overtook me. Something icy-cold descended, invisible, soundless, and scentless. I felt its weight, like a material precipitation, but then it became vaporous and expansive, lodging in my throat and lungs. Gasping for air, I noticed Marik, too, was suffering.

Birds. Blackbirds. Crows. Jays. Robins. And more. No other symbol, no other message could be more targeted at me.

More kids were exiting the gym and joining us in the parking lot for this aerial and funereal display. As they coursed among us, shouting, pointing, and stepping among the dark carcasses, more birds dropped from the sky. A panic ensued. People were knocked to the ground in the frantic rush to avoid the falling birds. And again, the faces in the crowd became ugly and distorted. Some pointed and laughed with a menacing snarl at the lifeless winged creatures. Others scurried about with vacant, zombified expressions, while a few became hostile. I noticed two simultaneous shoving matches break out. One was between two girls.

With the dark energy still lodging over the area, I myself was slowed by its density and felt an overall torpor that had me struggling as if in water or even quicksand.

As the volume of birds dropping increased, so did the pandemonium. From far above, desperate squawks and screeches filled the air. Their pitiful cries of distress were all the more woeful given the increasing number of birds tumbling with horrific
thwacks
all around us.