Sugar Birds

by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

  Mama. Dad. Where were they buried? Did Burnaby visit their graves? Did he miss them as much as she did? She sighed. Mama was right about sleeping in the dark. When that moon bloomed full, it would pummel Aggie, haunt her with memories. Maybe she would slip back to her inky cave for a few nights when its light woke her.

  She hadn’t realized how her den insulated her from the nocturnal noises and activity, either. Tonight, the forest teemed. An owl floated through the shadowy trees dangling a rodent from its talons. Bats shimmied after mosquitoes around the freestanding chimney. A possum appeared from a burrow and foraged on the ground, while deer browsed near the dilapidated barn. Distant coyotes yipped like fans at a ball game.

  She caught the stink of a porcupine somewhere nearby and later awoke with a lurch of fear to a scratching, crackling sound. Claws! A cougar? Her breath dammed in her throat, escaping only after a bobcat’s dim outline descended an adjacent trunk and blended into the undergrowth.

  With the rising sun, the creatures vanished. Aggie rolled to her side on her new bed and shoved knotted hair from her face. Two Steller’s jays, their feather crests tall, scolded her as they flitted between branches. “Please, birds. Not yet.” Mud flaked off her cheeks as she pressed herself onto her elbows, weary. “You’re way, way too loud.” More sleep would be impossible with those high-decibel birds harassing her. She rubbed her eyes, stretched, and began pulling moss from her pajamas.

  Then she remembered the flashlight man. Her eyes flew to the cellar, its plank door dappled with shade. Before she went inside, she had to know that Cabot wouldn’t surprise her.

  He wouldn’t. She found him at the dairy, whistling the next group of cows into the parlor, where they’d keep him occupied for at least an hour. As soon as she saw him, she pivoted and sprang, deer-like, back into the woods and down the hill.

  Suspicions doused her with dread as she crept inside the cellar, but as before, the shelves stood empty. Where was it? Slow down, Aggie. Her eyes crawled the room until they rested above a top shelf, near the ceiling. She climbed, reached into the narrow slot, and, with her fears realized, extracted a shotgun. She glanced at the door, lowered the gun stock-first to the floor, and shook her head. She didn’t want to imagine the worst, but knew he wasn’t hunting birds with it.

  Before the fire, Aggie’s dad had owned a shotgun. When she turned nine, he taught her to shoot, but not with that twelve-gauge. “It’ll knock you flat, little girl.” Instead, he bought a twenty-gauge over/under, and showed her how to carry it with its muzzle pointed at the ground or the sky. She learned how to drop open the barrels and slide two shells into the chambers. How to set and release the safety. She could press the gunstock into her shoulder, draw a bead, and squeeze the trigger. Dad threw clays for her; they exploded when she shot.

  “You’re a natural, Aggie. Excellent form.”

  She did not, however, enjoy shooting one bit. The kick, even from the smaller gun, left bruises on her shoulder, and the noise jarred her. Even with foam plugs, her ears rang afterwards. And every shotgun killed birds.

  Aggie hefted the gun and sighted it toward the chimney. This one was the same style as hers, but bigger, heavier. She toggled the safety on, off, on. Was it loaded? That would be dumb— and dangerous, leaving it where anybody could get it. But he doesn’t intend for anybody else to get it. She cracked the gun open so that the muzzle tipped away at an angle from the stock, exposing the brass ends of two shells. She swallowed hard. The gun was ready to fire.

  She considered throwing it in the river. No, way too obvious. Cabot still hadn’t discovered the empty necklace box, or he wouldn’t have brought the gun here. He still thought his hideout was a secret, and she wanted to keep it that way. She fingered the rawhide around her neck. Rubbed the agate pensively.

  What if she just removed the shells? There was no extra ammo in the cellar, so unless Cabot brought more, he couldn’t reload. If he checked the chambers before he used it, he would know he’d been found out, but she’d take that chance. She’d seen his meanness. If he had rotten plans for this gun, pulling the cartridges might slow him down.

  She slid the shells from their chambers, returned the gun to its shelf, and flipped the wooden door latch into place.

  CHAPTER 36 ~ CELIA

  Drive-By

  “He’s gone, honey.” Gram turned from the door, her chin trembling. Cabot’s car roared away.

  I hurried to her, quickly looked her over, then wrapped my arms around her, relieved to find her untouched.

  “You were somethin’, Gram. I expected him to blow right by you.” My voice caught, tangling with residual anxiety and awe. Cabot stood six foot two of solid muscle. Mender Burke barely brushed five feet and was so lean she could shade herself with a clothesline, yet she had kept the man outside. Her hand lay open over her chest, forming a V beneath her clavicles. “You okay?” I asked.

  She inhaled and grinned. “I had help. I don’t know why I was so shocked. It wouldn’t have been the first time.” I stepped away from the window as she drew all the blinds wide open.

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Gram. I heard the strength in your voice.”

  “I’m not taking any credit,” she said. “The good Lord protected us.” She locked the door before she headed for the phone. “I’m calling Deputy Yost. I have a brief report to file.”

  Cabot drove past the gate four times in the next two hours. Fast. Slow. Fast. Then very, very slowly, with a thirty second pause at the gate before he squealed away, his tires smoking. Gram jotted notes on a tablet each time he went by—as calmly as if she were keeping track of eggs poaching. A baby raccoon played with Mason jar rings in my lap as I huddled against a kitchen cabinet and drew strength from my giant of a grandmother.

  “He scares me, Gram.”

  “Me, too.” She slid a raspberry cobbler into the oven. Set the timer.

  “I’m afraid he’s a sugar bird, Celia.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A term your granddaddy used for someone desperate, scratching and pecking and clawing for a sweet seed that will soothe that ache in his heart.” She lowered a mixing bowl into sudsy dishwater. Dried her hands. “Seems like he thinks you’re his.”

  “I’m no seed.”

  “Glad you realize it.” Her finger traced my hairline. “I suspect that man will always be hungry.”

  “Can you imagine if Burnaby’d been here?”

  “Good thing he wasn’t.”

  “Where was he off to so early, anyway? I heard his truck leave before I got out of bed.”

  “Seattle. To see his parents.”

  “Any news?”

  “Harris is on the mend. That shattered leg will take a while, but his doctors hope to release him by this weekend.” She untied her apron and hung it on a hook. “Bree’s another story. Those third-degree burns on her back … She’s fighting sepsis. Her organs are stressed.”

  “That’s awful.”

  Gram’s eyes wandered toward the window. “Horrible. Who knows how long they’ll keep her in that coma. Nora said Burnaby visits his dad, and then sits by Bree’s bed for hours on end, watching a ventilator breathe for her.”

  Both of us fell silent. I put my fingers on my wrist. My heartbeat matched the ticking kitchen clock. I couldn’t keep Aggie a secret much longer. What if Bree died while the girl was hiding in the woods, and Aggie never got to say goodbye? I wished I could read the child’s mind. If she learned her mom was near death, would she come with me? Or disappear for good?

  “Gram, if someone said they wanted something, and you knew they needed something different, what would you do?”

  “Depends. Who are we talking about here?”

  “Just somebody I know.”

  “From the berry fields?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Is the person open to suggestion?”

  “Not at all. Won’t stick around if I tell anybody, either.”

  “Is the person in danger?”


  “Yes. But it’ll get worse if I tell. I promised I wouldn’t.”

  “Can the person’s parents help?”

  “No. They aren’t around.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “May be deadly.”

  She crossed the kitchen to where I sat on the floor. Set a hand on my shoulder.

  “Can you talk to Mr. Leegwater? Tell someone at the farm?”

  I pressed my hands together without answering.

  “Celia.”

  “I guess. Yeah. I’ll do that.”

  I got up and scanned the empty road. No blue car anywhere. “I’m going to check anthills.”

  “Better not, dear. Stay inside for now.”

  I couldn’t. Aggie was hungry. “Maybe I’ll lie down.”

  “Superb idea. Hard morning. Think I’ll do the same.”

  I closed my bedroom door and waited until she padded down the hall. When her door latch clicked, I tiptoed downstairs, filched some waffles from the freezer, and hurried across the yard toward the trees.

  CHAPTER 37 ~ AGGIE

  News

  Aggie carried the shotgun shells to the river and threw them far over the water. When a kingfisher plunged near their point of entry, she worried he’d retrieve one. Instead, he rose from the river with a minnow, flew into a cottonwood, and enjoyed his breakfast. Aggie thought of the biscuits, and Celia, her friend. Mama would have been happy for her, knowing she had a human friend. Especially a friend who fed her.

  For the next few hours, she poked sticks in anthills. Picked berries. Avoided a skunk, its tail bobbing like a question mark through the dike grass. Retracing the route where she’d found biscuits, she waited, debating with herself how best to convince Celia about Cabot. Drumming up courage.

  At last Celia’s melodic voice preceded her down the trail. “I have your breakfast, Aggie. Maybe we should call it a brunch today. Blueberry waffles. Mm-mmm. You’ll like these. Here you go. On this branch.”

  Crouched near a bone plate, Aggie waited until Celia passed her. Did she keep her word and come alone? The waffle dangled feet away. Saliva pooled under Aggie’s tongue.

  “I have n-e-w-s,” Celia sang. “Your dad is coming home from the hospital. Burnaby’s visiting him and your mother today. When you’re ready, come to me. I can take you to them.”

  Aggie forgot the waffle. What did she say? Her dad was what? Alive? Mama too? She leaped upright. The girl wouldn’t lie about her parents.

  Panting, she swiped aside a snowberry bush and sprang toward Celia’s trail just as the top of a man’s baseball cap bobbed through the undergrowth, coming her way. She dropped like a falling rock and slid back undercover. She lied! She brought someone!

  Footfalls moved, stopped, moved along Celia’s path, mimicking her stops and starts. Aggie forced her breath into shallow, noiseless puffs, though her heart battered her insides.

  Seconds later, Cabot came into view. Every few steps he stopped and inclined his head, then moved toward Celia’s voice. He was chewing a waffle—one of Aggie’s waffles—and trailing her friend. And when Celia turned, he ducked.

  She doesn’t know he’s there.

  Aggie frowned. Celia was broadcasting her message and Cabot was hearing it all. Now he knew she and Celia talked, knew that Celia hung out with Burnaby. Didn’t Cabot kill Pi because Celia spent time with her brother? The implications settled on Aggie with horror. Burn was in worse danger than she thought. Perhaps Celia was, too.

  Celia’s voice faded, and Cabot evaporated into the greenery behind her. Aggie looped wide, like a bird dog circling quail, until she saw the porch door close behind Celia—and watched the stalker slip behind the woodshed and jog toward the barn.

  With Celia safe, Aggie hurried after him and crouched behind a rain barrel in time to see Cabot jerk the padlock and tug on the immense barn door’s handle. When neither budged, he pounded his fist against the frame, scanned the empty road, and trotted across the field. Then he climbed the fence and sank over the hill near Uncle Loomis’s farm.

  He was like a coyote. Or a wolf. One who was extending his range.

  He dropped out of sight just as Burnaby drove his truck through Mender’s gate. Two minutes. They missed each other by two minutes. She watched in relief as her brother turned a key in the padlock and slid the barn door open along its overhead runner. The lofty interior swallowed him. Another door inside opened and closed.

  Aggie flared her nostrils and inhaled a long draw, trying to catch his scent. She missed everything about him. Now he was alone, not thirty feet away. Hidden by the barrel, she hugged her knees to her chest. Were her parents alive? He would know—and he could take her to them. They’d find somewhere to live, all together again. A tremor of hope passed through her.

  And doubt. They might be alive, but according to Celia they were still in the hospital. People didn’t stay in hospitals that long unless they were so, so, so injured or sick. She hurt them badly. Almost killed them. They wouldn’t want to see her. All that pain? Her fault.

  She rolled onto her knees and bent over them. Pressed her mouth against her leg as cries welled, then heaved from her like vomit. She had to get this out of her. This dirty voice that pressed on her like a stone and crowded out hope.

  “Lord’s Day Forty-Five.” An image of Dad smiling, his fiddle across his lap, seeped like fog around her black thoughts. “Aggie, you ready?” Her turn for catechism. Burnaby stood beside the kitchen table with her.

  “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name …” She knew the words. Spoke them between sobs. “Forgive us our debts—” Would he? If she gave him the fire and what she did to her mama and her dad, would he take them away? She couldn’t carry the weight one more day. Her fingers snarled in her matted hair, pulling, pulling. She had to give him those debts. Needed him to lift them off her.

  Her words came from a slow faucet at first, but they came. Tears dampened her pajamas as she mumbled into her knees, pouring out her fear and sorrow and guilt. Her regret. Then, from somewhere deeper, her remorse. Talking, crying, talking. Until she made room inside herself. Until she had nothing left to say.

  CHAPTER 38 ~ CELIA

  Eagle

  “Aaaaa-gee, Aaaaa-gee.” I sang her name to a made-up tune as I carried the waffles to the woods. I would leave a few down by Burnaby’s bone plates, along the trail to the anthills. If she hung out near them, she would hear me.

  I had to convince her soon. If I didn’t find her by Friday, I’d have no choice but to enlist Burnaby’s help and hope he wouldn’t frighten her off. We didn’t have much time. The child was stressed, underfed, and without shelter. The weather was deteriorating. Unseasonably chilly rain and high winds would arrive as soon as the weekend—three days away. Unless Aggie stayed warm and dry, hypothermia could claim her before we got her to her parents.

  I called to her. Sang. Told her stories. Told her at least ten times that her parents were alive. Told her I’d be her friend. Twice, I thought I heard something in the trees behind me, but when I stopped moving, the sound did, too. Creepy. In my Halloween imagination, it sounded like a bear, like something big was in those bushes. Nothing like a small girl.

  Cabot’s visit still spooked me. I needed to calm down. “I’ll be back tomorrow, Aggie.” I speared my last waffle on an alder branch and whistled my way home.

  The next morning, the dogs raced ahead when I paused in the field between the barn and the road, breathing in the warm, sweet scent. Pasture grass fell like a swooning crowd behind a sickle mower, pulled by my granddaddy’s old Massey Ferguson tractor. A red-tailed hawk landed in the stubble, plucked a dead vole, and flew past its circling mate. Crows scolded and intruded on a mottled young eagle—a female, I figured, given her larger size. She tore at a rabbit, also killed by the passing mower. Scavenging birds popped into the air and relocated as the dogs loped toward the feast.

  I held a scrambled egg burrito high in the air. The tractor slowed and the mower bar stopped scissoring. Burnaby cli
mbed to the ground, and I waved the food at the birds. “Might as well join ’em.”

  Burn ticked his mouth in a fleeting smile and retrieved his breakfast. The tractor engine sputtered idly, and he settled against one of its tires.

  “You eat yet?”

  “Mine’s waiting at the house. I’m fine.”

  Burnaby held his burrito in front of me. “Some for you, too.”

  Man oh man, it smelled good. “Twist my arm.” I leaned in and took a bite.

  Just as I closed my mouth over the tortilla, a blue Camaro charged over the hill and downshifted. The driver slowed to a crawl. Cabot, his elbow jutting from the open window, glared at us. Too close for this girl. He was a mere fifty-yard dash away, with only a fence between us. I chewed twice and swallowed.

  The birds in the field erupted with the car’s noise. The dogs popped their heads out of the grass, ears forward, alert. The immature eagle flapped over the fence with the rabbit in her talons and landed farther down the road, where she continued shredding the carcass.

  Cabot’s face contorted. He stuck his head out the window and yelled at us, but I couldn’t hear him over the idling tractor and grumbling car.

  “What’d he say?”

  Burnaby was staring at the treetops across the road, his cheek fluttering. “You should go in the house.”

  Cabot shouted something else, gunned the engine, and sped forward. Startled, the roadside eagle unfolded her wings to flap upward just as he swerved his car toward the bird. The chrome fender struck her somewhere between wing and body. She careened up the car’s hood and, for a split second, seemed to be flying away.

  But no. The impact flipped the eagle into the air before she sprawled, her wing torqued sideways, onto the road’s shoulder. The car squealed to a halt; the door swung wide and Cabot stood tall on the threshold. He thrust his middle finger in the air before he stabbed it toward the injured bird and yelled, “Next time, Hayes, that’s you!”