Sugar Birds

by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

  She pushed Aggie’s shoulders against the tree. “Stay here,” she barked, wheezing from the smoke. “Your dad … his fiddle.”

  “No, Mama!” Aggie snared her mother’s nightgown, clawed it toward her. Mama wrenched, ripped the fabric from Aggie’s hands, and darted back to the burning house.

  Aggie flattened herself against the trunk and slid into a crouch. And then, horror: flames gulped air through the open door and jumped into her mother’s hair as she disappeared inside. “Noooo!” Aggie fought her seizing muscles, leapt the porch steps in stiff strides. A whip of fire stopped her at the doorway. Unbearable heat bullied her backwards.

  “Harris!” Mama wailed from somewhere inside. Voices melted in the roar.

  Aggie flew off the porch through a swarm of sparks and raced the log home’s perimeter, skirting wide past windows that, opened for night air, now spewed licking tendrils of flame. A timber popped and sprayed pulsing embers across the lawn. Numb from adrenaline and terror, she plowed across them in bare feet.

  At the front door, she hesitated at the handle’s thumb plate, glowing red with heat. Covered her ears at the maniacal crackle of flames inside. Then she jammed her hand into a boot on the landing, struck the latch, and shoved.

  Locked.

  Panting with fear, she pounded the boot’s heel on the door and bleated, “Mama! Dad!”

  She flung the boot onto the lawn and again sprinted around the house, searching for access, but all the windows bloomed in the darkness, pushing, pushing fronds of flame out toward the sentinel firs at the yard’s edge. Could she climb in through the crawl space, through the trapdoor in the pantry? There had to be a way.

  But no. The house screamed as the logs whistled and exploded in the heat. Flames punched outward from every window and doorway. She sped the circumference of the house again and again, but no route inside remained to her.

  Beaten back to the trees, she doubled over, struggling for air and coughing up the acrid taste of ash. She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, sealing them against the smoke’s sting, and rubbed until she could again squint at the flames, at the charred ground, at a seared circle in the grass at her feet.

  Her campfire circle.

  Her campfire.

  A scorched trail led from the circle to some blazing lumber stacked by the house. With temples pounding, she stared at the smoldering path. This nightmare. Her fault. Her head hung over the blackened earth, her mouth agape.

  The realization dizzied her, gutted her with dread. She tripped, righted herself, and tore back to the big maple where her mother had left her. She scrambled up the two-by-fours nailed to the old trunk, a ladder to her leaf-veiled treehouse, where guilt collapsed her over the little cabin’s half wall. Riveted to the unfolding devastation, she flailed against blame until shock lifted her outside of herself, detached her from the body she no longer wanted to claim as her own. Until denial, in a brief respite, made her an observer, not the cause. Yes. An observer. Of that girl in the treehouse. That girl crying. That girl who lit a fire.

  Sirens wailed along the road. Smoke billowed around her, and she held her sleeve over her nose and mouth as fire trucks and an ambulance rolled in a procession down the driveway, their lights strobing the yard and barn. Men in heavy brown suits shouted, hefted fat hoses, and sprayed.

  Water dented the blaze, then vaporized. The fire roared back, engulfing the logs and penetrating them until curved trunks glowed and exploded. Firefighters receded into the inferno. Aggie watched dumbly as a section of roof collapsed and her bedroom opened to the spark-filled sky. Fire stormed through the hole.

  A firefighter crossed the porch carrying a limp body. Behind him, two more emerged with another lifeless form slung between them. When a man shouted, Aggie’s hands flew to her open mouth. Had he said, “Gone”? She wasn’t sure, but she thought so. Gone? Did that mean they were dead?

  She fell forward on the treehouse planks, her breath shallow, the whump of falling timbers thundering around her. Sirens screamed. Orange light shimmered through cracks between boards; shadows contorted on the ceiling.

  Then even more smoke, as firefighters fought the blaze. Someone called her name over and over, but trauma immobilized her, rendered her thoughts erratic and muddled. She wouldn’t answer. Couldn’t.

  By the time dim morning light crept over her, the dying fire chewed quietly. Aggie pulled herself up the half wall and absorbed the scene. Embers snapped in black rubble where her home once stood. Only one man sprayed hot spots; others coiled hoses and stowed ladders.

  And then they got into the trucks and drove them away down the road.

  Her mind tripped and stalled with exhaustion and shock. Oh, her mama. Her dad. Gone. Gone.

  To the hospital? A blip of hope rallied her, then died. She had seen those bodies, heard the firefighters yell. Her chest clenched, wringing her insides hard, like a dishcloth. Dad. Mama. She killed them with those sticks. With her fire. She beat her legs with clenched fists, bit her cheeks, tasted blood.

  Her eyes flitted randomly. Think, Aggie. She couldn’t stay here. If they caught her, they’d take her to jail. Well, to juvie. And according to scary Mike Mackey, who knew firsthand, that was as bad as jail any old day.

  She had slouched low in her school bus seat in front of Mike while he told Joe Paulson how an officer patted him down and searched his pockets and then took all his clothes and felt him all over for hidden stuff. How they put chains around his belly and irons on his legs when they took him to court. Chains! How the toilet was out in the open and he had to poop right in front of everybody. When he lowered his voice and told Joe what the dirty boys there did to him, Aggie had started to shake.

  The memory galvanized her, nearly propelled her down the treehouse ladder. She would find her uncle’s farm. Find Burnaby.

  Then a terrifying image of Uncle Loomis, his face skewed with rage, floated enormous and close.

  She flattened herself against the treehouse wall and shut her eyes, reliving the fright from two months earlier, on the Saturday Burnaby first drove his new truck to the farm. After she promised to rake compost for Aunt Nora, Mama had agreed to let Aggie go with him.

  Aggie had waved at her aunt through the kitchen window and skipped to the calf shed to let the newborns suck her fingers with their foamy mouths. From a mound by the door, she scooped a bucketful of fuzzy cotton seeds and poured little piles of them near yearling heifers grazing outside. A few were nosing the treats when Uncle Loomis climbed through the fence and lunged at her. He gripped her shoulder, leaving dirty fingerprints on her shirt, then bent low and thumped her chest.

  “Wasting rations! Lost your brains?”

  She dropped her head.

  “Listen up, girl,” he hissed, his spittle spraying her face. She focused on his tangled eyebrows, dodging his speckled eyes. “I don’t need no more rats around here, stealing my feed.”

  Aggie had avoided her uncle ever since. And now? If Uncle Loomis threw a fit over a few cotton seeds, what would he do to her now, after she burned down her house?

  And killed my parents. She plucked at her pajamas and cringed. She was too bad for anyone to help. Too awful. Uncle Loomis. Burnaby. Everyone would hate her.

  Such a tiny, practice fire. She put dirt on it, didn’t she? But not enough. And she flicked those embers all over the place. Mama was right. She was too hasty. Careless. Ohhh. The groan roiled inside her. Grief punched her guts.

  A car engine alerted her to a sheriff ’s rig crawling up the dusty lane. In the early sunlight, smoke hung over the wreckage like gold fog, blurring the uniformed men into specters who circled and poked at the smoldering ruins. One of them said her name.

  Still trembling, Aggie dropped down the far side of the tree, where they wouldn’t see her, and fled.

  CHAPTER 3 ~ CELIA

  Detour

  With the road map across my knees, I traced our progress north toward Seattle along I-5 and checked my watch. “We’re on track for the cabin b
y eight tonight, Daddy.” I flipped down the visor mirror and twisted the stud in my infected earlobe, my teeth set against its sting. “Remember how I went off on you during spring break?” My father drew a slow breath and nodded. “And how pissed I was when you kept me from going to Meredith’s party?”

  He shifted in his seat. “That I do.”

  “I’m sorry, Dad. Mother did a number on both of us, and I haven’t made things any easier. But the second we left Houston, my pity party was done.” On the map, I circled SeaTac, where we’d just landed, with a wide swipe of my marker and wrote June 15, 1985 in block letters across the top. “Fresh start. Right now.”

  He cleared his throat like he was going to say something, but I kept talking. “I’m through with her. I’m done missing her.”

  He glanced at me, his expression skeptical. And sad. I couldn’t remember his last belly laugh. Forcing a smile, I patted his shoulder. “See Dad? I’m fine. We’re fine. A few days at Lake Chelan and we’ll be straight-up awesome.”

  He slowed to let a two-toned Chevy pickup merge in front of us, then ran the back of his hand across his forehead. Strange. A sixty-five-degree day in Seattle, but he was sweating more than he did in Texas.

  “You okay?” He nodded as I drummed on the dashboard. “Our exit is coming up.” I read traffic in the side mirror. “Right lane, right lane—or that semi will block you out.”

  “The way you watch the road, I’d have given you your license in a heartbeat, Celia. What was that examiner thinking?”

  “I ran a red light in downtown Houston, Daddy. That’s what he was thinking.” I cranked up the radio. He turned it back down. “Now. I-90 East. Right there.” I sat up straight as the turnoff approached, and cocked my head at him. “Use your blinker.”

  “I know how to get there.”

  He checked his mirror. His hands, perfectly placed in the prescribed ten and two position, tightened on the steering wheel. But did he move into the exit lane? No. No, he didn’t. Instead, he eased into a lane farther left and accelerated.

  And he drove right past the exit. My head swiveled, watching that turnoff go by.

  “You missed it. What are you doing? Lake Chelan is that way.” I snapped my thumb to the right—back toward the ribbon of freeway heading east out of Seattle and over the Cascade Mountains.

  “Change of plans. We’re not going to the lake.”

  “What?”

  “I only found out Friday. Didn’t get a chance to tell you.”

  My voice left me. Seconds ticked by.

  It returned loud.

  “You didn’t get a chance. It’s Sunday. You couldn’t tell me Friday night after work? Or when we were packing? Or at the airport?”

  He tapped the steering wheel. I glared at him.

  “I was afraid, Celia.”

  “Of what?”

  “That you wouldn’t come.”

  “Come where? Where are we going? Why did you have me pack for a month if we aren’t going to our cabin?”

  “To my mom’s. I thought you’d enjoy seeing your grandmother.”

  “You’re dodging. We’d go there anyway—after the cabin, like always.”

  “Nothing’s ‘like always’ anymore. I’ve been offered a remote assignment. If I don’t take it, I’ll be out of a job. All the layoffs—”

  “What about our plans?” I sounded screechy.

  “Campos Oil doesn’t send their exploration geologists to Lake Chelan. I’ll be working with their deepwater exploration team off the coast of Brazil. That offshore data acquisition I told you about. Three-D seismology.”

  I gaped at him, absorbing. “We get to go to Brazil? I didn’t pack the right—”

  “Not this time. I’ll be on an offshore rig, so no dependents. Too dangerous. Sorry, sweetheart.”

  “You’re leaving me?” Why not throw me to the wolves and be done with it. I scooted against the door and crossed my arms tight against my sternum. From the corner of my eye I saw him glance sidelong at me, but I did not look his way. No sir. He cleared his throat.

  “Those turbidite reservoirs are turning out better crude than any of us anticipated. Once the oil industry recovers, we want to be ready.”

  “You said ‘yes’ to an assignment in South America and I can’t go with you. You didn’t even tell me about the offer. Do I have any say in this?”

  “Celia, I hoped—”

  I fanned my hand to silence him and leaned across the console, inches from his ear. “What am I supposed to do while you’re gone? For what, three, four weeks?”

  Air escaped through his teeth like radiator steam, and he drove on without saying a word. He sped up, checked the speedometer and backed off the gas pedal. I knew it was killing him that the car lacked cruise control. The man never got tickets. Never got pulled over. A ridiculous rules guy. Oh, yeah. Always doing the right thing.

  Except for me.

  “You didn’t answer me, Daddy. Give me a timetable—and a home. Where are you going to store me while you’re away? At Gram’s for a month?”

  “You may need to stay there a little longer than a month.”

  “What? How long? Details, Dad.” I pounded my pen on the map, leaving spotty red marks all over western Washington.

  “Well, a few months from my start date. Six months max. If it goes past August, Mrs. Derby will send you whatever you need when she checks the house. Maybe you can even begin the school year here in Washington. The counselor at Axling High School said she’d duplicate your first semester schedule. And the cross-country coach liked your times.”

  “You called them?” I wadded the map. Pressure was building behind my eyes.

  “Well, yeah, I—”

  I pitched the crumpled map at his head. He ducked and swerved toward a sedan in the next lane. The driver lay on the horn and braked hard.

  Daddy jerked the wheel. “Hey! What the— You trying to get us killed?”

  “I don’t care.”

  He straightened his arms, pressing into the steering wheel. Lifted his shoulders and held them there. Inhaled, long and slow.

  “You love it at Grandma Mender’s.”

  “But I don’t want to live with her!” I shouted. “Why can’t I stay with Meredith?”

  “I think you know.”

  Unbelievable. My best friend ever, and he called her a bad influence. “Loose as ashes in the wind,” he said, like he was talking about cleaning a fireplace or something.

  He reached across the console for my hand, but I yanked it away.

  “So. Following in Mother’s footsteps?”

  “Don’t be absurd. It’s a job, Celia. We have to eat.” He changed the radio station to some boring newscast and flipped his sunglasses off his forehead onto his nose. Then he turned up the volume.

  Stupid tears. I stretched the hood of my sweatshirt down over my eyes and rubbed them through the fabric. Mascara smeared onto the fuzzy aqua lining. Great. Just great. A raccoon mask to complete my ensemble. I hugged my knees to my chest, stiff as a mannequin in my brand-new, travel-to-Seattle tracksuit. My nose clogged.

  “When do you start?”

  “In a week. I fly back to Houston first thing tomorrow.”

  “Daddy, no!” He winced when I yelled. “You’re exactly like Mom. You care more about your stupid deepwater seismology than me.”

  “Sweetheart. That’s not—”

  I pushed up my hood and turned to him.

  “Don’t ‘sweetheart’ me. Go ahead. Dump me with your mother and see what happens. I may not be there when you get back.”

  “C’mon. After all we’ve been through together?”

  I felt like a yo-yo. Before Mother left, I dove for any scraps of tenderness from the woman. A smile? A compliment on my grades? A little concern when I hurt my knee? I took what I could get. Then she would hoard her kindness and I’d starve. I had watched her leave and banked on Daddy. Now he was leaving me, too. I had trusted him with every bone in my body.

  I was an idiot
.

  I pulled my arms inside my sweatshirt so the sleeves hung empty and curled my hands, fetal position.

  If he was going to ditch me, I would show him I didn’t need him, either. I didn’t need anyone. I would get home and start my junior year in Texas, not some hole-in-the-wall in Washington State. No way I’d miss out on this cross-country season. Or miss our math team events; the four of us were totally killing it.

  And since the day Meredith moved into our district after semester break and extracted me from the chemistry lab, my looks were working for me, too. Hair. Makeup. Clothes. Meredith credited her makeover as the reason that stud calf-roper Luke Ralston talked to me when she and I hung out by the chutes at the high school rodeo finals, and why he walked me to the bonfire afterwards.

  Dancing flames didn’t cause those astonished stares when I walked through that crowd in Meredith’s hand-tooled cowboy boots with Luke hanging on me. I swear Meredith sensed that I was about to ditch him and run to the ladies’ room to scrub my face and calm my hair down a little. She trotted up beside us, looped her arm in mine and whispered that I was a Harris County version of Sandy in Grease. Making my entrance, she said, and oh, was it ever grand.

  Luke stopped by before Daddy and I flew north, saying that after I got home from this trip, he’d like to hang out, if I was up for it. Made me a little nervous, but I told him I just might be willing. Yessir.

  I felt my prospects dissolving. If I didn’t get back to Houston way before Christmas break—Daddy’s six-month forecast— Luke would be long gone. And that Jeep waiting in our garage? Oh yeah. I wanted my license.

  I fingered the paint swatch in my pocket. Moss green. For the cabin. Daddy and I had waded through the Benjamin Moore sample rack to find it. Well, we wouldn’t be doing any painting now. Or lying in the sun. Or water-skiing.

  What would I do for months at Gram’s? Hoo boy. I supposed I’d occupy myself with that insane rain problem Mr. Maurer had given our math team. Run those endless country roads. And read. I’d brought a few requisite AP English books and a dog-eared paperback Meredith had stuffed in my bag at the last minute. “Brace yourself, girlie,” she said. “You won’t find that in your sweet little school library.”