Instead, what had my entire town full of hope and big ideas was what one scientist described on the news as an extremely rare group of albino woodpeckers by the name of pileated.
“They’re big birds,” the scientist told the reporter, “just not quite as big as the Lazarus was.”
Aside from being completely different species, there is a significant yet odd difference in the color of the Lazarus woodpecker and the pileated one, the latter having a distinctly darker bill. Given that the bird or birds seen near my home and supposedly seen all around town were albino species, their bills were just about the color that the Lazarus’s would have been. This, supported by the inability to trap or record an actual bird and the negative DNA tests, all led to the conclusion that my town had been living a lie for nearly four months. And if you listened closely outside of any window in Lily the week we found out, you could hear the deafening silence and disappointment.
“This guy at the store told me something cool today,” Lucas said to me as we sat idly on the porch.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“He told me the Lazarus used to be called the Good God Bird.”
“Yeah? That’s weird,” I said.
“Native Americans,” he said.
“Native Americans what?” I asked.
“They used to see it flying over their heads and in trees and the only thing they could do was yell ‘GOOD GOD!’ ’cause it looked so big.” Lucas smirked, shaking his head slightly from side to side, his hands spread apart to signify the bird’s enormousness in the air.
I wondered, riding in the passenger seat of my mom’s car one afternoon, whether there would ever be a break in the silence that now seemed to occupy all of my family’s time together. An awkwardness had sprung up after those few months, where before there would have been playful laughter and in-depth conversation and harmless bickering between us. I wondered if Lucas Cader would really marry Mena Prescott and if Gabriel would actually be there to hold their children. I wondered if Russell Quitman would ever walk again or if Ada Taylor had sentenced herself to a life of sitting around and waiting on him hand and foot. Then I realized that I didn’t care.
Dr. Webb says that life is so full of complications and confusion that humans oftentimes find it hard to cope. This leads to people throwing themselves in front of trains and spending all their money and not speaking to their relatives and never going home for Christmas and never eating anything with chocolate in it. Life, he says, doesn’t have to be so bad all the time. We don’t have to be so anxious about everything. We can just be. We can get up, anticipate that the day will probably have a few good moments and a few bad ones, and then just deal with it. Take it all in and deal as best we can. We can learn to love the Mena Prescotts, we can imagine the Russell Quitmans to be zombies, we can fantasize all day long about the Ada Taylors, and we can wish we were more like the Lucas Caders. We can be comforted in the fact that life will always be a struggle. There will always be false hopes. Lazarus woodpeckers. There will be John Barlings to lead us astray and Oslo Foukes to remind us that maybe we are doing things right after all.
When I asked him the meaning of life, Dr. Webb got very quiet and then told me that life has no one meaning, it only has whatever meaning each of us puts on our own life. I’ll tell you now that I still don’t know the meaning of mine. And Lucas Cader, with all his brains and talent, doesn’t know the meaning of his, either. But I’ll tell you the meaning of all this. The meaning of some bird showing up and some boy disappearing and you knowing all about it. The meaning of this was not to save you, but to warn you instead. To warn you of confusion and delusion and assumption. To warn you of psychics and zombies and ghosts of your lost brother. To warn you of Ada Taylor and her sympathy and mothers who wake you up with vacuums. To warn you of two-foot-tall birds that say they can help, but never do.
When one is sitting in his bedroom and, happening to glance out the window, sees his little brother walking slowly down the driveway, he immediately jumps up, knocks over a stack of magazines piled up beside him, and runs through the doorway and down the hall. He throws open the front door, slams his body against the screen and, hearing the tap tap tap behind him, jumps over the porch steps and down to the driveway. He stands several yards in front of his brother. He considers running, but doesn’t. His arms and legs are shaking. His bottom lip between his teeth, he walks slowly and carefully, making not a sound. He stops, reaches one arm out, and pokes Gabriel Witter on the left shoulder with his index finger. He smiles the slightest of smiles.
Book Title #89: Where Things Come Back.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel, in all of its incarnations, wouldn’t have been possible without the assistance, inspiration, and support of many people.
I am endlessly and wholeheartedly grateful to Ken Wright, who took this novel under his wing and made sure to find it the perfect home; Namrata Tripathi, editor extraordinaire, who fell in love with this story and helped make it better than I ever thought it could be; and John Meils and the people at WeBook, who rescued me from literary obscurity.
There would be no story to tell had it not been for my parents, Wayne and Karen Whaley, who always let me be who I was: a loner with a knack for writing semi-depressing stories; my brother and sister, Brian and Deena, for the impact they’ve had on my growing up; and my extended family—from aunts and uncles to cousins and grandparents—whose lives and words have, no doubt, become many of my characters’ lives and words.
I will also never forget the encouragement I received before, during, and well after writing this novel. To Randi Anderson, for her skills with a highlighter and red pen; to Kimberly Powell, Charissa Sistrunk, Nate and Anna Nelson, Melody Harlon, and Lindsay Welsh, for their unending friendship and support; to Buddy Merritt, for his tips on life; Dr. Susan Roach, for helping me appreciate being from the South; Dr. Andrew Higgins, for advising me not to settle for ordinary life; and to Genaro Ký Lý Smith, for teaching me to be a better writer. I also owe a great deal of gratitude to the many teachers I’ve had the honor of working with and to all of the hundreds of students, young and old, who’ve listened to me tell my stories for the last five years.
This story, while completely fictional, was inspired by an odd combination of the music of Sufjan Stevens; a story heard on National Public Radio; a small Arkansas town; my own home-town of Springhill, Louisiana; and a bird that refused to go away. Many thanks are owed to the above mentioned for their roles in what has been, for the past few years now, an obsession and a second life that I never expected to live.
Table of Contents
Description
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dediccation
Contents
Chapter 1: All The Idealism in the World Couldn’t Shake This Feeling
Chapter 2: Mysterious Kids with Shovels
Chapter 3: Take Me to the End of the World
Chapter 4: The Book of Enoch
Chapter 5: Love the Bird
Chapter 6: Benton Sage
Chapter 7: Neighbors
Chapter 8: The Tower Above the Earth
Chapter 9: In Defense of Irrationality
Chapter 10: Cabot Searcy
Chapter 11: Vilonia Kline
Chapter 12: The Watchers
Chapter 13: The Simplest Thing in the World
Chapter 14: Alma Ember and Her Small-Town Ways
Chapter 15: Aunt Julia and the Love Parade
Chapter 16: The Place Where Things Go Away
Chapter 17: This May Be the End of the World
Chapter 18: You Couldn’t Find a Nicer Guy If You Tried
Chapter 19: A Lavish Journey
Chapter 20: The Boy Who Caused Silence
Chapter 21: The Meaning of This Is Not to Save You
Acknowledgments
Back Cover
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Where Things Come Back Page 18
