Someplace to Be Flying (64 page)

“Never much eared for that one,” she says. Jack shrugs.

“You play the bones at all?” she asks then.

“You fixing to pull out a, fiddle?” be says right back.

She just looks at him, waiting him out. Jack smiles to himself. He’s starting to enjoy this now.

“I’m talking gaming bones,” she says finally.

“Dice or dominoes?” he asks.

“Either one, makes no difference. Winner take all.”

Jack shakes his head, like he honestly regrets having to say this.

“I don’t gamble either,” he tells her.

She nods. “Yon figure you can wait me out, don’t you?” she says, straightforward about it now. “Well, let me tell you something, boy. I was walking these mountains before you were even a gleam in your mother’s eye. I know a thing or two about waiting. I’m as patient as that rock you’re sitting on. As untiring as time passing. Sooner or later you’re going to fall asleep and I’m going to be there, tuck you in maybe, make up your knapsack into a pillow, ease the boots off your tired feet. And you know what happens then?”

“You that hungry?” he asks. “All I am is gristle and bone. Doesn’t seem worth the wait.”

She gives him a feral grin. “Pm always hungry, boy.”

Now Jack doesn’t remember he’s a eorbce that day, that he could sit there wide awake till the world comes to an end and still not be tired, were he to put his mind to it. And she doesn’t know what he is either, or she wouldn’t have stopped by his fire in the first place. She thinks she’s got herself some little wild jackdaw traveling man, instead of a full-blooded corb
æ. So she’s ready to wait him out, probably watched him walking up that dry riverbed all day, climbing higher and higher up into the mountains, and figures he’s got to be tired from all that exercise. He’s got to nod off sooner or later.

Well, maybe Jack doesn’t remember who he is, but he’s still about as stubborn as they come and he’s thinking about whoever she’s got under the blanket in that birdcage of hers. Knows that whoever she’s got caged, he’s that person’s only chance. So he starts in to telling her stories
-
not the kind he’d be telling us, but long pointless stories, the ones that go on for so long by the time you get to the end you can’t remember where it was he started, only you don’t want to ask in case it starts him telling the whole thing all over again.

And some time goes by.

I’m not talking hours, I’m talking days. It’s like when Margaret and Cody got to playing billiards, or Zia got into that face-pulling contest with one of Sleepy Joe’s kids.

By the time dawn finally came around at the end of that first night, the witch knew she was in trouble, but it was too late to back out now. Not without forfeiting her prize. Like a cuckoo, she was too swollen with pride to allow herself to do that. Truth is, she had cuckoo blood, somewhere back in her family tree. It’s what made her a witch in the first place, gave her the finding gift and all.

So by morning she was worrying, but that was like nothing as the days went by. Got to be where neither cuckoo blood nor witcheries cotild keep her awake anymore and one cool evening her eyelids are so heavy she decides to let them close, just for a moment. Jack’s in the middle of some confusing story about porridge, partridges, and an otter with a wooden leg and she figures he won’t notice. She’s right, too
-
or she would’ve been, if closing her eyes just for that moment didn’t trick her body into thinking it could finally have some rest. She topples over, fast asleep, and the next thing you know, Jack’s jumped across the fire and he’s laying a blanket over her to warm her from the night chill.

That wakes her up.

“Damn you,” she starts to say.

But it’s too late. He’s already done the favor for her, turned her witcheries back on her, and quick as you can say hickety-split, he’s got himself a little cuckoo bird wrapped up in that blanket. She’d have maybe fought a little harder against the folds of prickly wool, but the tiredness that was her undoing didn’t go away with her becoming a bird. She struggles a few moments, then goes still, exhausted, falls asleep.

Jack builds up the fire and takes the cloth from the birdcage to find that she hasn’t got a bird caught in there, but a toad. A toad girl, actually. An old spirit who’d never heard about avoiding the kindness of witches. Didn’t pay attention to the learning stories when they were told to her, 1 guess, or maybe she was just never in the company of anyone who knew them, which is probably more likely.

Well, he takes her out of the birdcage and puts the cuckoo witch in, lays the cloth over the cage again. Then he sits by the fire with that little toad in the palm of his hand, considering her, not like the witch did, weighing what she might be worth to him, but taking into account what she’s worth to herself. He thinks he’s trying to discover her name, but that’s only because he doesn’t remember that once on a time, back on that first day, he knew everybody. What he’s really doing is trying to remember her name.

When it finally comes to him, he says it aloud.

“Charlotte.” ‘

And that lets her shake off her toad skin. He sets her down on the ground and the next thing you know he’s got himself a brown-skinned toad girl sitting there with her broad face smiling at him.

” ‘Cept my friends call me Tottie,” she says.

“I guess I knew that,” Jack tells her. “But naming you Tottie might’ve brottght you back as a hot drink.”

“That’s a toddy.”

Jack shrugs, which makes her giggle and him smile. But that toad girl’s good humor doesn’t last long. After a moment she turns to look into the fire and sighs.

“What’s the matter?” Jack asks.

“Guess I’m pretty much a dumb old toad,” she tells him.

“What makes you say that?”

“Letting myself get taken in the way I did,”

Jack shakes his head. “Smartest person in the world can still be tricked
-
especially when she doesn’t know the rules. Yon. don’t want to start on belittling yourself, Tottie. You’ve got a good heart and that’s more important than just about anything.”

“Doesn’t stop a witch from catching you and fixing to fry you up in her skillet.”

“Maybe not. But the evil people do, that’s their responsibility. The burden they have to cam. Sure, when we see ‘em starting on causing some hurt, we’ve got to try and stop ‘em, but mostly what the rest of us should be concerning ourselves with is doing right by others. Every time you do a good turn, you shine the light a little farther into the dark. And the thing is, even when we’re gone, that light’s going to keep shining on, pushing the shadows back.”

“Yon really think so?” Tottie asks.

Jack gives her a solemn nod. “There’s a lot of things in this world I’ve got to guess at, but that’s one thing I know for sure. “

Long after everybody else is gone, Kerry and I are sitting in the grass by that old stone in Jack’s field of grace. I’m feeling a little strange, being here. This is where Jack buried that little bundle of bones and hair that the doctors took out of Kerry all those years ago. There’s no marker with my name on it, though. There’s no marker for our mother’s grave, either. The only one Jack has for now is a small plot of turned earth, but soon enough the grass and wildflowers will grow up and cover it over. Which is how they would have wanted it, I tell Kerry when she asks why there’s no gravestones.

“I didn’t get that story Jack wanted you to tell,” Kerry says after awhile. “I mean, I understand about treating people right-the way you’d want them to treat you-but there seemed to be more to it that went right by me.”

I lean back on that stone so that I can look up into the sky. I’ve never been to this place before, but I understand now why it meant so much to our parents. It’s one of those places where the Grace can shine, untouched by meanness or spite. If they come into this field, it’s only because we brought them. Which is pretty much how it works everywhere, when you think about it. The difference is, this piece of grace hasn’t been spoiled yet.

“I think the other part of what he was saying,” I tell her, “is that everything has an existence separate from ourselves. People, animals, trees, art … everything. So when you’re interacting with something-it doesn’t matter what it is-you shouldn’t be concentrating on how clearly you see yourself in it. The trick is to recognize the worth of a thing for it’s own sake instead of recognizing its worth to you.”

“Jeez, I didn’t get that all.”

I give her a small smile. My hand lifts, clasps the crow pendant hanging at my neck.

“Or maybe that’s just what I see in it,” I say.

Newford, Sunday, September 8

Sender: [email protected]
Date: Sun, 8 Sep 1996 19:32:16 -0500
From: 'Lily Carson' 
Organization: Not very
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: How I spent the day after Labor Day
Hey, Donna,
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I mean, I
only got up the nerve to finally send my letter off
to you a couple of hours ago.
>how crazy all of this sounds?!?
Yes, I do know. And that makes me appreciate how
supportive you've been all the more. To tell you
the truth, if you came to me with a similar story,
I don't know if I'd be as supportive. I'd want to
be, no question, and I'd try, but I don't know if I
could
But that's one of the main problems when you're
dealing with something Like corbæ. Katy says that
people have a natural gift of denial, some sort of
a genetic thing that Lets us retain our safe view
of a normal world no matter what. We can forget the
most momentous, bizarre experiences like they never
happened. Because if we couldn't, we wouldn't be
able to operate efficiently in the worLd that most
of us have agreed is real. We'd always be looking
under the surface, around the corner, paying more
attention to our peripheral vision than what's
right in front of us. So we forget it instead.
I remember that happening after Hank and I first
met the crow girls in that alley. The whole experi-
ence kept sliding away from me-partly, I guess, be-
cause it was so upsetting to remember Philippe
Couteau's attack on us, but also because things
happened that night that shouldn't be able to hap-
pen.
It's like all those people who were drawn to the
Harbor Ritz when the Grace's Light enveloped it.
Katy says none of them remember it. They might
dream about it sometimes, or catch the way light
falls in a certain way and have one of those nig-
gling feelings of deja vu, but they won't con-
sciously remember.
I don't know if that's true or not, because I don't
know anybody who was there. But I know it's true
for Rory and he saw a lot more than any of those
people ever did. It's impossible to talk to him
about what happened. He just gives you this blank
look, or smiles, like he knows you're putting him
on .
It drives me crazy because this is something I
can't *not* talk about. I have to keep it alive and
fresh because it's important to me. I don't want to
lose the knowledge that the world really is a big-
ger, stranger place than we ever thought it was. Or
that there really is a thing called a spirit inside
us. That's why I wrote it aLL down in the first
place.
I have to tell you that I really had to think long
and hard before sending you a copy. I didn't want
you flying back here to have me committed or some-
thing. : )
But I'll tell you now, the next time you do come
back-Thanksgiving? Xmas?-I've got some stuff to
show you. I don't know if you've got animal blood
or not, but for some things it doesn't matter. Mar-
garet's been teaching me how to find those short-
cuts I was telling you about, and those little
pockets of the world that got trapped in a fold and
can't be seen unless you know how to look. Those
are things I *can* share with you.
Oh, jeez. Listen to me. I sound like I was born
again, or have started selling Amway or something.
Look, just tell me to shut up if I'm getting on
your nerves.
>And how are things working out with Hank?
Well, it hasn't even been a week since we first
slept together, you know, but so far it's good.
Forever? I don't know. He's an odd contradiction.
On the one hand, there's this whole street-smart
tough guy that he is. I mean, you wouldn't want to
mess with him--at all!! -and he obviously had a re-
alty hard time growing up as a kid. Seriously bad
home life, on the streets when he was really young,
in trouble with the law, in prison. He's been
through stuff that I don't think we could ever un-
derstand. I mean, it makes having been tormented in
high school like we were sound like a cakewalk.
But he came out of it with such a big heart and a
positive attitude. And he's really bright. Actu-
ally, his whoLe 'family' at that junkyard is really
sweet and smart, once you get to know them. You
keep wanting to tell them to do more with their
lives, but then you realize that they see things
differently and you have to remember to respect the
choices they've made. I don't know as much about
them as I do Hank, but just from stuff I've over-
heard, I know that they've all had really hard
lives, so if this is how they want to deal with
that past pain, who am I to tell them different?
Truth is, I kind of admire the way they live out-
side regular society. In that way, they're kind of
Like the corbæ-invisible people that the rest of
us don't normally see because we're not paying at-
tention. Getting to know them the little I have has
sure given me a different perspective on street
peopLe, I'll tell you that much. I mean, not to ro-
manticize them or anything, because some of them
just are Losers or broken people that can never be
fixed, but they're still people. They just deal
with things differently than we do. Sometimes by
choice, sometimes not.
Anyway, getting back to Hank. He's very sweet and
attentive, but we move in such different social
circles that I don't know what's going to happen in
the long run. I think I'm more comfortable with his
family than he is with the people I know. The weird
thing is, I'm starting to see through the preten-
sions more myseLf. It's not anything he says-he's
got to be the most circumspect person I've ever met
in some ways. But I can tell what he's thinking and
it makes me think about things differently, too.
Which is a good thing, I suppose.
Now you're probably thinking that it's that faling
in love syndrome, you know, where you suddenly take
a great interest in, oh, say reggae music because
your new sweetie's so into it, but I don't think
that's entirely it. For one thing, there are people
Like Christy, who Hank immediately liked and re-
spected, which makes me trust my own reactions
more, because he's aLways been one of my favorite
people, too.
>gangster's money?
I don't know what to do with it. Giving it back
will just cause problems for Moth and since he's
starting to loosen up around me, I don't really
want to get him irritated with me again. But it
doesn't seem right to keep it either. Maybe I
shouLd just give it to some charity.
Well, I guess I've run on at the mouth long enough.
Thanks for being so patient with me. And now it's
your turn. You haven't told me *anything* about
what you've been up to lately. Whatever happened to
Peter? Or are you seeing that Andy Parks fellow
from work now?
You have to come home for a visit soon. (I know, I
know, Boston's home now, but you know what I mean.)
It's just that
I
miss you and right now I've got
*no* money or I'd fly out to visit you.
Or maybe we should just use that $10,000 for travel,
money to ferry us back and forth when we *really*
need a visit! :)
Love you. Lily