Set Me Free (2 page)

* * *

So, E
LLIOT
B
ARROW,
you’re asking yourself somewhere in there, in the place where you can hear me: what does all this have to do with me? Why
is he telling me all this? And now? Why, after so many years laden with secrets, full of the silence that exists between men,
is Calbert Fleecing taking these moments beside my deathbed to open up? Does he take pleasure in telling me all I ever wanted
to know about him, now that I cannot speak? Is he here to preach, to pontificate? To tell me I was wrong all along? Or is
he turning soft? Embracing the cliché: wise Indian dispenses wisdom at just the moment when the whole world seems full of
despair?

I’m not here because of me. I’m here because of you. You have a secret. I should have known. And it is only now, in knowing
the secret of Shakespearean proportions that you guarded so well—my God, you should win an Academy Award for your performance—that
I understand what I must do. The secret is what brings me here. It makes me understand what Maw-Maw meant when she said that
My Way is Our Way, which is the Human Way. (For after all, that is your way too, isn’t it? You and my grandmother, humanists
united across time.) It makes me understand why the only way my Maw-Maw could leave this earth was to have me tell her the
story of Daisy. Daisy’s story led her out of her body, let her forgive it for the way it had betrayed her. And that is how
I’m supposed to help you.

Look, Maw-Maw’s Way (Our Way, if you want to get technical about it, and I know you always do) doesn’t help me most of the
time. She didn’t give me Indian Ways, or if she did, they were all mixed up in Human Ways, and I’ve never known how to untangle
them. When I first knew how I was supposed to help you, I was lost, man. I don’t know how to make a Story Stick. No one ever
taught me how to carve. If I lived a hundred years ago, I’d go to the general store and buy a ledger book and draw your story.
That’s what we did back then, before we’d learned your language. If you want the humiliating truth, I even tried that. Bought
a notebook and a bottle of whiskey at Fred Meyer’s and tried to draw
you, just a few of the pieces you’d told me about. But every time I tried to get your body down on paper—your little-boy body,
your teenage body, your young-man body—you were always on fire. I thought, “I must be a fucking genius. I’ve figured it out:
Elliot Barrow was always on fire, but it was his rendezvous with actual flame that made people really see him. All this time
he was dreaming of touching people, but only when he burned up and had nothing left to touch with, no body, no hands, could
he actually begin to touch anyone.”

Lucky for me, just then was when your secret came calling. Just then was when I understood the real reason you were holding
on. That was when I understood what I had to do to help you. I saw why my drawings had failed: because I was going it alone.
The truth is, I don’t know you half as well as I knew Maw-Maw, because I was a little boy then and she was the woman who raised
me, and you and I are straight, grown men who have loved each other in the way of which men never speak. Clearly I don’t know
you as well as I thought, but a little discouragement hasn’t deterred me. If anything, it’s emboldened my cause. I’ve gathered.
I’ve imagined. And I’ve written it all down so I can read it to you. For perhaps the first time in your life, you’re all ears.

W
HEN
M
AW
-M
AW
was dying and asked me to tell her her own story, she didn’t want to know that it was hers. She didn’t want me to say, “Maw-Maw,
remember when you slipped on the front steps and I had to run and get help?” Instead, she wanted: “Daisy Lesmures slipped
on her front steps the morning after the first frost. Her grandson Calbert Fleecing was so small, and his arms so weak, that
instead of picking her up himself, he had to run the three miles to the nearest telephone just to get her on her feet.”

At first I thought Maw-Maw wanted her story this way because she didn’t want her memory to interfere with how I remembered
things. This is how most twelve-year-olds think; they’re the center of the universe. I thought she wanted distraction from
her own
point of view, and I knew I was a good storyteller, so I embellished with my usual, dramatic panache.

But now I see it’s something far different. She needed me to tell her the story of Daisy Lesmures because it was Daisy Lesmures
who was going to trick her body into getting its final rest. It was Daisy Lesmures, not Maw-Maw, who was going to get up from
the bed where Maw-Maw lay and open the door and step out into the sunlight.

Elliot. From now on, I will not be calling you “you.” From now on, I will call you “Elliot.”

The Adults

The Children

The Time

Autumn 1996 through Spring 1997

[OR]

We Run Ourselves Aground

A
MELIA

Stolen, Oregon
Early fall, 1987

A
melia would tell you that the story began long before it actually began. She’d say it started when she was seven and Victor
Littlefoot was eight, on a day she’d almost entirely forgotten until her life made her remember.

They were playing fairies. Her father’s friend Helen, back east, had sent Amelia a copy of
Shakespeare’s Stories for Children,
and the tale that entranced her most was the one with Titania and Oberon and Puck and the changeling child. Victor was not
very interested in the large white book with the beguiling pictures. So Amelia bribed him with the promise of a next day’s
game of Horse on the school’s basketball court; in exchange, she got a make-believe game of Fairy Royalty. And that was what
led them out of sight of the Bugle House, and her father’s window, and the broad prairie of the school grounds, and down to
Wiggler’s Creek, where they were not supposed to go, especially not when dusk was coming on fast.

Despite Victor’s valiant attempts to avoid the game, once coaxed to play, he made a very convincing king of the fairies. His
upper lip, brown and earnest, was beaded with sweat that shone in the light when Amelia squinted. She could imagine him sprinkled
in fairy dust, with a crown of apple blossoms, commanding an army of sprites. He seemed to be having a good time, which was
why
she decided to lead him farther down the creek bed, away from where the older kids might be playing or spying. She knew that
any distractions would keep Victor from agreeing to something like this again. She’d felt herself losing him for some time
now. So Amelia waved the wand she’d made from a juniper twig and declared that Victor was the mightiest king in all fairydom,
and entreated him to walk on into the forest of Aragon and make of it what he could.

The forest of Aragon, in this case, was a stand of aspens planted on the Rudolph ranch, which lay just on the other side of
Wiggler’s Creek, over the fence, and in the next field. Anything on the other side of Wiggler’s Creek was off limits. There
was a real risk of being caught by one of Rudolph’s farmhands or seen by a well-cast eye from the school. But Amelia didn’t
care. She knew that there was no such thing as fear of authority when one was lord of all the enchanted world. She also knew
that if she commanded Victor, he might well go. She needed him to prove it to her: all the loyalty she hoped he had. So she
said it again: “I entreat you, good king, walk on into the forest of Aragon and make of it what you can.”

Victor ducked his head and thrust his hands into his pockets, and for a moment she thought she’d lost him for good. But then
his neck straightened and his smile gleamed. “For you, my queen, I shall do this bidding,” he said, and her heart skipped.
Within an instant he had leaped Wiggler’s Creek and was bounding up the other side of the embankment. She watched his skinny
body squeezing through the wires of the fence and saw him uncurl on the other side and wave before sprinting off toward the
stand of tall green trees. His blue T-shirt got smaller and smaller as he ran from her, and she beamed with pride until he
stopped short ten steps from the forest.

She waited for him to move on. But he stood frozen in a tangle of sagebrush, looking down. He looked like a statue, and she
knew then that only the sound of her voice could break his spell. They could both get into lots of trouble for being off campus.
“Go!” she
whispered, hoping him forward. She should have gone herself. Victor wasn’t brave enough for discovering new places.

“Amelia!” Victor’s voice rang out across the open meadow. Too loud. They would get caught for sure. She squatted so she was
closer to the ground. But now she couldn’t see him, and she started to wonder what was going on. Was it a rattlesnake he had
discovered? He knew what to do around a rattler. But what if it was a nest? What if they were surrounding him, winding around
his ankles, shaking their tails? Her heart started to pound, and then he called her name again.

Amelia launched her body across Wiggler’s Creek and crept a few steps up the embankment. “What is it?” she called in as quiet
a yell as she could.

“Come quick!” He wasn’t moving. She looked behind her, at the school, but she didn’t see anyone. She’d have to risk it.

Soon she’d pulled herself through the wire fence and was running to Victor. “What is it?” she hissed again. The bushes were
as high as her face, and she had to dodge them so they didn’t scratch her. When she got to Victor, she wanted to hit the back
of his head for ruining their game. But then he stepped aside and pointed.

All her body went numb and buzzy at the same time. “What is it?” she asked a third time, but quietly, because it was obvious
what it was. She looked at Victor and then back down at the ground.

“It’s a baby,” Victor said.

And it was. It was lying there on the ground, on an old gray blanket, with its eyes open, looking up at them. A real live
baby. A changeling child, like the one they’d been conjuring. This was serious.

“What do we do?” she asked, but not of Victor.

He turned and looked at her, then slowly swiveled his head back toward the school. “We should get someone.”

Amelia glanced back down at the baby. It was puckering its mouth. Its little hands and feet were pumping in the air. It seemed
very small below them.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we should leave it.”

Victor’s jaw dropped. “We’re not leaving it. I’m getting your dad.”

“We’ll be in trouble.”

But Victor was already running. “I’m not going to let that baby die,” he called. He was already nearing the fence. It seemed
as if he were flying.

Death. She hadn’t thought of that. Victor was right. This baby could die. Anything could die. Amelia took off her sweatshirt
and laid it down over the baby, which was dressed in only a small yellow T-shirt and a diaper. When she squatted close to
the baby, it smiled at her. She put her pointer finger in its warm little hand, and it tried to pull it into its mouth. The
baby’s breath smelled good and milky. Amelia turned to look for Victor, but he was out of sight, probably running over the
creek bed, already on the grounds of the school. “He
is
brave,” she thought. She was ashamed for acting like a little kid. She hoped he wouldn’t tell her father what she’d said.

She’d never been alone with a baby before, this close. Part of her wanted to pick it up, but she was scared she would drop
it. She couldn’t really imagine how heavy it would be. Of course, she’d seen babies before. She’d even held them on her lap.
There were new mothers coming by the school all the time. But she’d always felt brave with these mothers watching her, telling
her where to put her hands, ready to take the baby if it started crying. This was different. She knew you weren’t supposed
to let the head fall back, or it could break its neck or something. She didn’t want to break the baby’s neck.

That was when she noticed the white cloth tied to the tree. Almost like a banner. That scared her a little, because it seemed
like something a sorcerer would do. Maybe there was an invisible magic spell woven into the cloth. She began to notice how
quiet the world around her was, and how alone she was in it. So she sang. First “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” then “I’ve Got
Sunshine,” then the melody to Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A major, and then she ran out
of songs. The baby didn’t seem to care all that much. It kept puckering up its mouth and waving its hands in the air and kicking
up at her. It didn’t look happy, but it didn’t look sad. It just looked.