Uncanny

by David Macinnis Gill

  “How dare I what?” The mistress laughed, still seductive. “You called upon me to confess, and I did.”

  “Peace!” he screamed, but there was more fear in his voice than anger.

  “You want peace?” she said, almost cooing. “Then unbind my hands, and I’ll give you peace like no other.” She laughed again, but the sound died when the minister swept open his frock and pulled out a pair of tailor’s shears. She twisted violently, freeing her hands from the bindings and raising them toward her mouth.

  The minister grabbed a handful of her dark mane and opened the shears. “A woman’s hair,” he screamed, “is a temptation in the eyes of . . . God?”

  Harken felt a strange buzzing noise, and lightning split the sky. It struck the platform where the minister stood, the very spot exploding with light and splitting all ears with sound and filling the air with the stench of burnt flesh.

  Coughing and eyes burning, Harken stared in awe through the thick smoke. The other two women were still tied to their stakes.

  But where the mistress had stood, the minister now slouched, dead, bound by arms and torso to the stake. His long red curls lay at his feet, shorn to the scalp.

  Blood dripped from the stubs where his thumbs had been.

  “Witchcraft!” came the cry. “Murder!”

  “Mistress?” Harken whispered, stepping toward the platform. The mistress was gone.

  But not for long. After she had escaped her execution, the mistress found Harken wandering the town. They fled Scotland for Germany. In Würzburg the mistress became a witch hunter herself, an irony that delighted her. When the witch trials ended in Europe, they’d crossed the sea to the Massachusetts Bay Colony and had begun the witch hunting again—until Harken betrayed her and had put an end to her hunting forever.

  “How long does forever last?” Harken whispered, rubbing the copper coins in his pocket, his mind returning to the cemetery and the boy hanging from the tree.

  The Park Street Church bells tolled the hour. On the steeple, lit by arc lights, a flock of blackbirds perched silent as a tomb, waiting for something or someone to come. They did not caw or beat their wings or preen.

  The bell tolled again, chasing the flock into the sky. There, in the cold air above the bay, the small flock joined with other, larger flocks, the way that streams become creeks become rivers that run wide and deep into the sea, becoming a superflock of ten thousand birds whose sheer mass and density blotted out the sky.

  “Bloody hell.” Harken looked down, down into the tomb, down into the abyss. “Bloody, bloody hell.”

  The casket was empty.

  “The Shadowless has risen,” Harken said, and as rain began to fall, he turned and ran for his life.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  EXHAUSTION finally carried me to sleep. At first I was restless, vaguely aware that the bed was too hard and the air was too dense. A thought to open a window flickered past, but it was replaced by the sepia-toned dream images of the gravestones of the Granary, a flock of crows circling in the air above, and a dead man curled up in the front seat of a city bus, clutching a token in his half-open palm.

  He opened his eyes, dirt black orbs flecked with white, and walked toward the exit, where I was standing. A scream formed in my mouth, and I backed against a seat, but the dead man shambled past me. He pressed the copper into the driver’s hand. The door opened onto the shore of a brackish river, and he walked toward the water until he was swallowed by the swirling mists.

  The door began to close, but a hand forced its way in and wedged the panels open. Will Patrick walked up the bus steps in his school uniform, a navy blazer, white button-down, and khakis. His black loafers were caked with mud, and he flipped his bangs from his forehead, eyes on me, licking the corners of his mouth.

  “You cannot ride,” the driver said.

  But Will Patrick ignored him and turned toward me.

  I backed up, and his gaze trapped me in the aisle, so that I couldn’t flee. My legs shook, and my knees gave out. If I hadn’t been holding the pole, I would’ve fallen.

  Will Patrick smiled and began to sing “Will and Willow swinging in a tree, k-i-s-s-ing.”

  He laced his fingers through my hair and tilted my face up to his, his soft lips pressing warm on mine, his breath sour like turned milk. His skin was stretched taut over his skull, and he tasted like sewer gases, but the kiss never ended. I screamed at myself to fight, but I was paralyzed, unable to run or even pull away as his corpse sucked the life from me.

  Mist swirled from Will’s mouth, and I was swallowed up by it. My hands closed into fists, and I felt something round and cold in my palm. I opened my hand, and the coin hit the floor. It rolled away, copper glinting in the light, a penny for the ferryman, like the token the dead man had held.

  “No!” I screamed and squeezed my eyes shut. “Leave me alone!”

  When I opened my eyes, Will Patrick was gone. It’s just a dream, I told myself. Wake up. You can leave anytime you want.

  But I couldn’t. The door was open, but my feet wouldn’t move, and I would not wake up.

  “What you do want from me?” I screamed.

  The answer came as a knock from the back of the bus, tapping on the glass like Miss Haverhill’s sharp knuckles on the apartment door. The window cracked, and the mists seeped in, bringing a strangling cold with them. The glass frosted over, and a sheen of crystals formed. It crept toward me, and I shivered both from the cold and from the knocking.

  “I’m not afraid of you.” I lied through chattering teeth. It’s a dream, I told myself. You can wake up. Just open your eyes. But my eyes were open, and my arms were pressed against my belly to fight off the chill.

  The rapping became a hammering, a steady beat, growing louder, shaking the safety glass, the metal frames bulging with each strike, then shrinking, and bulging again when the hammer fell. The sound echoed through the empty bus, and I covered my ears and bent over. Then with a terrifying blow the window behind me exploded, and I screamed.

  “Leave me alone!”

  Shattered glass lay on the seat behind me, and the cold mist still oozed inside, but it was silent. I shuddered and said a silent prayer of thanks.

  Then the whispering began. Children’s voices, light as air and sweet, though too ethereal for me to make out the words. I leaned closer to the ruptured window, straining to hear. The whispers turned to singsong, turned to a familiar tune, a familiar voice.

  “Will and Willow sitting in a tree . . .”

  “Devon?”

  She appeared in the seat next to me and said, “The shadow people watch when you sleep.”

  “What?” I said. Something caught my eye. I looked past Devon at the dead girl standing right behind her, a cold hand reaching for my sister’s hair.

  “No!” I said, just as boom! a devastating clap shook the bus, and the rest of the windows blew out.

  I ducked and ran for the exit, but the door slammed shut, and the one remaining piece of glass, the windshield, turned white with frost. The knocking began again, then a persistent, insistent rapping that shook the frame until I stood bolt upright.

  The dead girl was beside my bed, staring at me with Mercurochrome eyes and flaxen hair, her mouth as dark as an open grave. “The shadow people watch you sleep.”

  “What do you want from me?” I said, shutting my eyes. I rocked back and forth, counted down from a hundred, and when I opened my eyes again, she was gone.

  I held up a hand to block the sunlight streaming through my windows. That’s when I saw two things at once—a dozen blackbirds perched on my sill and blood dripping from a cut in my thumb.

  The scissors! Ma must’ve come back and tucked them under my pillow, and I’d stabbed myself in my sleep. I wiped the blood on my pillowcase and flung the scissors at the floor. With a thunk, the sharp points stuck in the wood. The noise frightened the birds, and they beat the window with their black wings.

  “Holy crap,” I whispered, staring out at a miasma of
black feathers.

  Thousands of starlings, grackles, and blackbirds filled the trees, the roofs, and even the sidewalks. They roosted on cars, trucks, road signs, power lines, and handrails. The birds screamed and whistled, trilling a guttural racket that made my skin crawl.

  “Ma! Come look!” I called.

  But the flock took off, rising in a crescendo of feathers. I grabbed a white button-down and a pleated green tartan skirt, my Beacon School uniform, the frumpiest collection of fabric in the universe.

  “Come look at what?” Ma called back.

  “Ma!” I rounded the corner to the kitchen, zipping my skirt and stuffing Dad’s letter in a pocket. Ma never smiled until her second cup of coffee, but her sleepy face was much better than the dead girl’s. “Did you see the birds outside?”

  “I heard them.” She stood at the sink, washing dishes and watching the street below. “What a noise! It could wake the dead.”

  “It’s called a superflock,” I said. “We studied them in AP bio. Wicked cool, huh?”

  “Wicked, yes.” Ma wiped her brow. “Birds are an ill omen. Mark my words.”

  “Oh, Ma,” I said. “It’s just birds, for chrissakes.”

  “Watch your mouth,” Ma scolded but without much gusto. She was keeping watch on Devon at the corner bus stop. “Like your dad said, words are dangerous weapons in the wrong mouth.”

  “Speaking of dangerous,” I said. “Could we stop with the lethal objects under my pillow? We’re playing All Saints today, and now I’ve got to play with a gash in my thumb.”

  “That’s nice,” she said.

  “So is Devon still there?” I said while slapping together a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. “Or did the birds carry her off?”

  Ma pushed the curtain aside. “Still there, standing behind that nose-picking Flanagan boy. That one’s trouble, just like his big brother.”

  “You can tell that from one nose picking?” I took a bite, leaving teeth prints in the peanut butter. “Most ladies read tea leaves, but not my ma. She sees the future in the boogers of little boys.”

  Ma swatted me as I twisted the bread bag closed. “Boogers and body functions, it’s no way to talk.”

  “Next to Siobhan, I’m a saint.”

  “Next to Siobhan, Whitey Bulger is a saint.”

  I grabbed my book bag. “Nobody’s ever taken Siobhan for a mobster.”

  “Give her time.”

  Time! I checked my watch. If I hurried, I could hit the pawnshop on the way to school. I retrieved the thimble case from my room and slid it in my book bag, between my lunch and a copy of The Crucible.

  “Jimmy Flanagan!” Ma yelled out the window. “Don’t dare touch my baby with that finger!”

  “I’m leaving!” I called. “I’ve got the All Saints game, so I can’t pick Devie up from aftercare. Okay?”

  “Who’s the mother here?” Ma said. “It’s chilly out. Take a sweater.”

  “It’s Boston. It’s always chilly out.”

  “Your mouth won’t be so fresh when you catch cold.”

  “Viruses cause colds, not the weather.” But to make her happy, I grabbed my school sweater from her leaning tower of sewing scraps. “Happy?” I said, pulling it over my button-down.

  “You’ve snagged a thread.” Ma dried her hands on the apron. “Let me get that.”

  “No, I’m good.”

  I opened the front door, ready to make my escape, but Ma was too quick. She grabbed a crochet hook and in a blink was bearing down on my chest.

  “No touching the boobs!” I clapped a hand over the loose thread. “Give me the scissors. I’ll cut it.”

  “Cut it?” Ma tsk-tsked me. “What’ve I told you about never cutting a thread? One snip—”

  “And the whole thing unravels,” I said and curtsied. “I yield, m’lady. Do with me as you must.”

  “You watch too much TV.”

  “I read books. The book is always better.”

  Ma pulled the thread back into place. “All fixed. Now lean down here and give your old mother a kiss.”

  “You’re thirty-eight.” I pecked her cheek. “That’s not old.”

  “I feel sixty,” she said, rubbing her swollen knuckles. “Those needles do their damage. Did you read your dad’s letter yet?”

  I patted the envelope in my pocket. “Running late, so I’ll read it at school.”

  “A letter from your father should be read in his home.”

  I started to argue but had to admit she was right. Ma went back to the sink to dry dishes, and I carefully tugged Dad’s letter from the envelope. The back was blank, though when I looked more closely, there seemed to be lettering on it, but it was too faint to read. I flipped the paper over and read the greeting, “Dearest Sweet Willow.”

  Tears welled in my eyes, and a knot as hard and round as a Tootsie Pop formed in my throat. Ma had warned me to read it alone. Now it was too late. I pressed my wrist against my lips and tried to read the next lines:

  “I write this on the eve of your sixth birthday with you snug in your bed, your belly full of cake and soda pop and your heart full to bursting with the love of friends and family. You are reading it on the night of your sixteenth birthday, and as the letter was given by your ma, I was not there to share it with you.”

  “Oh my god,” I whispered and covered my mouth. “It sounds just like him.” My eyes clouded with salty tears. He knew. He knew somehow that he wouldn’t be alive, and it was like he was reaching out from the afterlife. “Ma,” I said, starting to show her the letter, even though she had told me I couldn’t.

  But she didn’t hear me. Outside on the street a truck horn sounded. Brakes squealed, and metal hit metal with a hollow, echoing thump that made my blood run cold. Nothing good ever came of a noise like that, especially when the silence that followed was shattered by my mother’s heartrending cry.

  “Devon!”

  I dropped the letter on the coffee table, rushed to the bay window, and threw the curtains aside. A crowd was gathering on the sidewalk and street, where my little sister lay still on the pavement, a pool of blood spreading under her head like a dead dove’s wings.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “NO! No! No!” As I vaulted down three flights of stairs, I pictured Devon’s face, cold, bloodless, and serene as if she were sleeping. Or maybe not sleeping.

  Don’t say it! I yanked open the heavy front door. Don’t even think it!

  My legs carried me down the sidewalk to the corner. I was barely aware of horns sounding and people yelling to call 911. I saw a Civic resting on the sidewalk, a dent in the front fender. The driver, a girl in a BC hoodie with cell phone in hand, was beating her head against the steering wheel, crying hysterically. A crowd, watching in silence, had gathered around Devon.

  I lowered my shoulder to plow through them.

  “Devon!” I yelled, dropping to her side. I checked her wrist for a pulse and felt nothing but the fading warmth of her skin. “You wake up right this instant! You’re scaring Ma half to death! Devon!”

  A siren squawked, and the crowd parted. Red ambulance lights danced on Devon’s black curls, and her pale skin flickered pink, then white, pink, then white.

  “Step aside!” the EMTs yelled, their doors slamming, their radios squawking, too. They’d come to help, but what could they do?

  “Oh, Devie.” I touched her cheek. “Please. Don’t be dead.”

  “Miss,” an EMT said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Move aside.”

  I moaned and covered my mouth, tasting blood and something metallic, unsure if it came from my tongue or the cut on my thumb. I felt the sudden shock of vertigo, and the air turned ice cold. The breath was sucked from my chest, and I was floating in space, not moving, not breathing, suspended by a phantom string. An electric chill went up my spine, and my tongue tasted like iron, just before everything went black.

  A moment later the light returned, and I opened my eyes. My right hand was covered in blood. I splayed out my
fingers and took a closer look.

  No, not blood.

  Chalk.

  Red chalk.

  “Willow Jane?” Devon sounded very far away, as if she stood at the bottom of a deep well. My baby sister, dressed in the blue coat and matching cap Ma had knitted for her last Christmas, fixed her eyes on me, then said in a gruff voice, “Daddy says you woke the dead girl up.”

  “W-what?” I said. “What dead girl? Devon?”

  She blinked three times. “That’s my name, you big ginge,” she said, taking a piece of red chalk out of my hand. “Why’re you using my school supplies?”

  I swept her into a bear hug, swinging her around so hard her shoes almost flew off. “Devie!”

  “You’re choking me,” she said through my sweater.

  My sister wasn’t dead. Not even hurt. “Sorry!” I pulled back, and chalk dust rubbed onto her coat. “I’m so happy you’re alive!”

  “Why wouldn’t I be alive?”

  “Because that . . . car . . .” Ten feet away I saw the Civic resting on the sidewalk, a dent in the front bumper from where it jumped the curb. The girl in a BC hoodie was tapping her head against the steering wheel, crying but not hysterically. A small crowd gathered around her, asking if she was okay. “Hit . . . you?”

  Devon cocked her head like I’d lost my mind, which wasn’t far from the truth. “Did you drink too much coffee again?”

  “Yes! That’s it!” But I hadn’t had a drop.

  “My bus is here.” Devon pointed to the yellow Blue Bird across the intersection. “Lemme go, before I have to sit by the booger eaters.”

  With a quick hug I let my sister go. She waved as she climbed the steps.

  “Keep your phlegm to yourself, Jimmy Flanagan!” I yelled, and all the kids looked back at me. Yes, I was a weirdo, but my sister was alive, and they could just deal. It was normal for nerdy Willow Jane to act abnormal, right?

  What the hell was going on? I looked up to the third floor of our building. The kitchen window was shut, like it had never been opened, and Ma was nowhere in sight.

  My relief quickly mutated to confusion. Before the vertigo hit, Devon had been dead, but when the spell was over, it was like the Civic had never hit my sister. But I had seen it with my own eyes, felt Devon’s breath slip away.