Butcherbird

by Cassie Hart

  Jena turned that page over, unable to look at it any longer. She turned her attention to the words on the page, though it took a few moments, a few blinks, before she could see straight.

  Local barn goes up in flames, kills family.

  Faulty wiring causes deaths of two adults and two children.

  Faulty wiring. Right. The same thing Rose had told her. Or she’d read, somewhere, she couldn’t even remember where exactly. It was ingrained in her, though, that knowledge.

  That lie.

  She turned the page again, then again, until she reached the end of the newspaper print outs. She recognised the writing on these pages as Will’s scrawl, the same as when he’d made a list of groceries. Running her hand down the page she skimmed over his notes, trying to find something new, something she didn’t know.

  There.

  Spoke to one of the officers working the case, he didn’t want to go into the specifics but said that for the sake of the family, some details had been kept back from the press, such as that at least Lucy had been dead before the blaze occurred.

  Jena leaned back in the chair, dropping the papers as though they might scald her, like the coals from the fire had when she’d sifted through them.

  Her memories were right, then. Her mother had been dead.

  They’d known. They’d known this whole time.

  Which meant that Rose had known as well. Rose had known, and had kept it from her. The old woman would no doubt say that it was to protect Jena, but all the lack of knowing had done was convince Jena that it was all her fault somehow.

  This was it. The proof she needed that her theory was true; her father had killed her mother, and if Rose had convinced the cops not to disclose that information then it meant she knew it too, and she was the only one who could have set that place alight.

  Sure, the report said faulty wires were suspected, but ….

  A slow itch started at the back of her neck and she heard a thump on the roof, her whole body going rigid at the sound. She held her breath, but nothing followed.

  Jena shoved the papers back into the folder and then scooped up the other files too, stacking them on the laptop before tucking the whole lot under her arm. She didn’t want to be here any more, reading about the events on the soil on which it had happened.

  In the place where they all died.

  It didn’t really matter by whose hands, because they were gone and there was no coming back from that.

  She scampered down the stairs, careful not to trip, and then rushed out the barn door, not bothering to shut it behind her. Let the birds have it, she didn’t care.

  A magpie landed in the dust off to her right, and then another beside it.

  ‘Go away,’ she said, flapping her free hand towards them, but they only hopped closer, more of them landing off to her left. She couldn’t split her gaze between them, but couldn’t cope with not seeing what they were up to, so she ran, across the yard and up the steps and into the house, slamming the door shut behind her.

  Only the caw of the magpies followed her inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  WILL

  It was early evening by the time they got to the hotel room. It was an older place with twin beds and a kitchenette. Will helped Rose onto her bed, and then took their Chinese to the kitchen to put on plates.

  He took a plate to Rose and gave her a fork. ‘Here you go then.’

  Will went back for his own, a far smaller portion than Rose’s, but then he didn’t feel like he could stomach it. He sat cross legged on the other bed.

  ‘Can you get the remote?’ she asked.

  He didn’t respond, finishing his mouthful instead. Then with a shake of his head, he turned towards her. He’d been dreading this moment all day, but knew he had to have the conversation, and it needed to be now.

  Well – now or on the ride home. But his stomach was aching from worry, so he needed to get it over with or he wasn’t going to sleep tonight. As it was, she might make him sleep in the car, but that was better than no sleep at all.

  ‘You gave me more,’ Rose said. ‘Are you okay?’

  Will sighed. ‘No, not really.’ He looked over at Rose, feeling his lips turn down at the edges. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘Is it about Jena? Is she making things difficult?’ Rose raised an eyebrow, setting her food aside. She’d barely eaten anything, but then she hardly ever did.

  ‘It is about Jena, but it’s not what you think.’

  ‘Spit it out, boy, you always take so long to get to the point.’ She frowned at him, the lines in her forehead so deep he might drown in them.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just …. She found a skull. Ernest’s skull.’

  The tension flooded out of her face as shock sunk in. ‘Oh.’ She pursed her lips.

  When she said nothing more, he set his own meal on the night stand and stood, pacing away from her and then back. ‘Oh? That’s all you have to say? Your granddaughter dug up the skull of your husband, who supposedly walked out on you and your children, and it has a bullet hole right here.’ Will stabbed himself in the forehead. ‘Kind of like he was running towards someone with a gun, not away from anything. Right?’

  Rose leaned back against the pillows and crossed her hands over her stomach. ‘And what of it?’

  ‘Did you kill him? She wanted me to ask you.’ He let out a sigh, shaking his head. How did he end up in this position?

  ‘Why didn’t she just ask me herself?’ Rose huffed and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Why do you think?’ Will threw his hands in the air, knocking his fork off the plate. It clattered to the ground and he bent to scoop it up, leaving his plate on the bedside table and striding into the kitchen to get a new fork.

  ‘He wasn’t right.’ She looked up at Will as he came back, her gaze firm. ‘It was him, or me, and I wasn’t going to let it be me.’

  His breath left him in a rush and he dropped onto the bed, letting his head sink into his hands. She had killed Ernest.

  That wasn’t what he’d expected.

  Well, he’d believed it to be true, but he’d expected to have to fight harder for her confession.

  ‘What did you want me to say, Will?’ Her voice wavered for the first time. ‘I did it. It was a long time ago. No one’s going to lock me up for it, because I’ll be dead by the time it goes to court.’

  ‘And the barn?’ Will looked up, then, wanting to see her face, to see if there was any trace of a lie on it when she answered.

  ‘There’s more at play here than you know about,’ Rose said. ‘I’m not denying it, but it’s more complicated than that. It’s deeper, and evil, and far, far older than you or even me.’

  The hair on his arm prickled when she said that, like something had brushed against him the wrong way.

  Like there was truth in her words and he wasn’t ready to hear it.

  But he needed to.

  ‘I want to know, Rose. I know something else is going on at the farm, I can feel it. I just don’t know what it is.’ He sighed, his breath tickling his dry lips.

  ‘No one wants to know, and if they do, they’re damn fools. I didn’t take you for a fool, Will. But maybe I was wrong.’

  It felt like things were on the line right now; if he played his cards right, she would open up to him, but if he faltered, that door was going to close. He could feel it like a thrum in his gut. If he didn’t tell her now, she might close up again and he couldn’t risk that.

  This wasn’t about Jena now; it was about him. And why Rose should confide.

  ‘When I was a teenager, my dad died in a car accident. It was awful. We were both lost, Mum and me, for a bit. She was driving, so she blamed herself. But I didn’t. I knew it wasn’t her fault, she’d never …. She’d never have done that on purpose. It was an accident.’ Will licked his lips, which felt so dry they might crack, his mouth too, but he didn’t want to stop for a drink, he had to get this out. ‘One day, it was like a switch had been flicked. She came home from
work and she was happy, like, normal. Until she wasn’t.’

  He glanced up. Rose was leaning forwards, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. He had her listening. This was good.

  ‘She started getting angry. Really angry. About things that had never mattered to her before. And she got mean too, telling me the accident was my fault, like they’d both wanted to die because of me. I was such a horrible kid that they couldn’t bear to live any more. But then she’d be nice again. Normal. No, better than normal.’ Will closed his eyes. He could see his mother, see her in the kitchen making pikelets, humming that tune she’d always hummed near the end. Hush little baby, don’t say a word, momma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

  He’d never been able to hear that tune without shuddering. Not after.

  ‘She wasn’t right, Rose. You understand that, don’t you?’

  ‘Like Ernest wasn’t right.’ Rose nodded slowly, sorrow in her eyes. ‘Did you kill her?’

  ‘No! No, oh my god, no. I was just a teenager.’ Will frowned, annoyed that Rose thought he’d be capable of that. He had to make her see, though, make her see that he got it. He knew why she’d killed Ernest. ‘She wasn’t right, not after she came home with that necklace, and she wasn’t right when she locked us in the bathroom, and she wasn’t right when she gutted herself in front of me.’ Tears pricked his eyes now, and he closed them, pressed his palms against them to try and force the image out of his head.

  He jumped when he felt Rose’s touch. Her arms came around him and he wept, letting the tears come out like they hadn’t in years.

  ‘I see, now,’ she whispered. ‘You know. You know.’ She rocked from side to side, just a little, not so much that it would cause her pain, but enough to comfort him, to calm him. And when he finally stopped crying, he drew away and looked her in the eyes.

  ‘What do I know, Rose? Because I don’t. I have a feeling … I think something was inside her that wasn’t her, but I don’t know how to prove that.’ He bit his bottom lip and then pressed on. ‘And I think something was inside Ernest, and inside Mark, but I can’t prove that either.’

  She let out a long, low sigh and nodded, ever so slightly. ‘You know. You’ve been touched.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘By the Other, Will. The dark edges of life, things from the shadow realms. I brought it on myself, but you did nothing to deserve this. Jena has done nothing to deserve it, either. It’s not her fault, and it wasn’t yours, but they don’t care about that. They don’t care who suffers, as long as somebody does.’ She flung an arm in the air as though dismissing him.

  ‘Who, Rose? Who?’ Will gripped her by the shoulders, tried so hard not to shake her, but she wasn’t saying anything, nothing that he could grasp onto, nothing he could hold up in the light and show anyone else. It was all feelings and hints.

  ‘I don’t know what to call them. Demons, ghosts, evil spirits. Those who have passed on but refuse to let go.’ She looked straight in his eyes then, steady as a kahikatea. ‘You know that. You’ve seen it. They got your mother, and if you could tell there was something inside her then it means you’ve got the sight too.’

  Will let go of her and dropped back onto his bed, the fight going out of him.

  The sight?

  He was vindicated, finally. Someone had told him he was right, but it felt like a hollow victory, or like he should have been able to do something to prevent it if he had this sight.

  ‘What does that even mean? Rose, you have to be straight with me.’ His mouth felt dry, but he couldn’t make himself get up and move to the kitchenette. Probably couldn’t force anything down his throat right now anyway. He just needed to know. ‘Please? I’ve been trying to find the truth my whole life, and you seem to know the answers, just tell me.’ He looked up at her then, saw the tears in her eyes, but didn’t understand them.

  She dabbed them away and nodded again. ‘The Māori have a word for it. Matakite. Seer. That’s what you’d have been called, had anyone thought to teach you.’ Those words were laced with scorn, as if it were irresponsible for his whānau not to have taught him something. Then her eyes snapped back to him and she reached out with her hand. ‘You have to take Jena and go, get her as far from the farm as you can. Promise me.’

  ‘What?’ Will shook his head, confused by Rose’s change in topic. Still, he reached out and gripped her hand.

  ‘Jena. And you, you should go too. Neither of you are safe. I should never have let her come back. I just hope it’s not too late.’ Her voice was garbled and she spoke quickly, as if her thoughts were jumbling.

  ‘Too late for what? Rose, you’re not making any sense.’

  ‘It might come back, it could get you. It could take Jena, and all I ever wanted was for her to be safe. It took Ernest and it took Mark, and I can’t let it take Jena too.’

  ‘What would take her? Rose?’ Will sank to his knees in front of her. ‘You’re not making sense.’

  ‘Him. The thing that was inside Ronaldo.’ The name was tinged with regret and loss. ‘Inside the watch ….’

  Will rocked back onto his heels, trying to find a way to bring the conversation back on track. To something firm and tangible. Something that might help. Because everything coming out of her now was garbled and confusing, he had no knowledge to hang it on.

  ‘Rose. I think you need to talk to Jena. She thinks this is her dad’s fault. Your fault. She doesn’t …. She thinks that there’s some hereditary trend towards murder. That she’ll succumb to it too. You have to tell her it’s not that. It’s not her.’

  ‘Murder? No.’ Rose laughed, a harsh bark that seemed to rip from her chest. ‘Self-preservation, yes.’ She tried to move her legs back up onto the bed, but her face pinched in pain. Will slid onto his knees and lifted them for her, his training kicking in before he’d even had time to think. No matter what she’d done in the past, everyone deserved kindness.

  Well, provided they weren’t taken over by something dark …. He tried to make his brain work, to piece everything together, but it was a jumble in there as he tried to cross reference everything he knew with the slivers of information Rose had given him.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Would it ever be enough?

  ‘Jena needs to know, Rose. She needs to understand.’

  I need to understand.

  ‘She needs to live. That’s more important. This should die with me. It’s the only way to keep her safe. I can see that now.’ Rose turned her face away. ‘I’m tired. We can talk tomorrow.’

  Within moments her breathing had evened out, and Will knew she had to be faking it, but he didn’t have the energy to force the conversation any more.

  Didn’t have the energy for much of anything.

  He sat back on his bed, feeling a spring through the mattress, smelling the dust on the duvet, picked up his plate, and picked at his beef and broccoli, even though it was cold and the sauce had congealed like blood.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  JENA

  Jena rubbed at the kink in her neck, groaning as she stood up from the dining table and made her way to the kitchen. She flicked the jug on and pulled the milk from the fridge as she waited, absently stirring the grains of coffee and sugar together.

  The barn was still there. Always there. She didn’t know how Rose had managed to stay here all these years with it looking like that, all innocent, as though nothing had happened.

  The jug finished boiling, and she poured the water into the mug, watching with satisfaction as the sugar melted and everything turned brown.

  She’d slept badly on the couch in front of the TV, watching old home videos, reminding herself of her family’s quirks; her mother’s smile, lips parting, her eyes widening slightly with love as she watched her children play or do new things. How her father had laughed when he’d thrown Jena into the air and she’d squealed with delight, the gruff tone of his voice when he’d told Joel off for digging up the garden where he wasn’t allowed. The way Joel had of
rolling his eyes, or cocking his head, birdlike curiosity shining through. And Mandy …. Damn, that kid had barely had a chance before she was gone. Had spent more time inside her mother than out in the world.

  It was gut wrenching to think neither of her siblings had ever had a chance to know life – hell, that the life she had was so tarnished by their loss.

  Her dreams had been full of fire and feathers, and her morning hadn’t been much better. She dragged Will’s files out, trying to see what led him to believe there was something weird or occult going on. How had he put it? Spiritual.

  It was just people doing horrible things to the ones they loved, which, if you asked her, seemed pretty run of the mill.

  She took her coffee back to the table and sat down again, pulling out the second-to-last file. This one had ‘Sylvester’ on the front. She flicked it open and scanned the faces of the people inside. A mother and father, three kids. Standard fare. This time it was one of the kids who’d done the damage, the eldest son, probably drugs or something else. Some trauma lying under the surface that drove him over the edge and convinced him they were all better off dead.

  God knew she’d considered that a time or two.

  Whatever Will thought he could see here was invisible to her. She just didn’t get it. Same as each of the others, even her own. Sure, there were the birds in her case …. But they hadn’t killed anyone.

  She closed that file and opened the last, scanning down the report that made up the first page. It was just one woman who’d killed herself. What was that doing among these other files? She flicked to the next page and stopped.

  It had no name on it, but it was clearly him. Someone had taken a photo outside the house as they wheeled Will’s mother away on a gurney, any wounds hidden by the black bag she was encased in. Will stood on the steps, one hand latched to the elbow of his other arm, his eyes wide and dark.

  It reminded her so much of the way she looked in the photo in her file that she lined them up next to each other. Eyes dark and empty, shock and fear and grief. Maybe someone else wouldn’t see it, but Jena could because she knew. And then she shoved them away, not wanting to think that they were the same somehow.