When Mockingbirds Sing (9781401688233)

by Coffey, Billy

  “Does he ever talk about me?” she asked.

  “Yuh-yes. He loves you, Allie. He wants you to nuh-know that. He thinks you’re a-a-awesomesauce.”

  Believer or not, that made Allie smile. She looked at the bathing suits draped over the chair. The idea that came was an odd one, but then, everything seems odd after you’ve been wounded.

  “Do you trust me, Leah?”

  “Yuh-yes.”

  “You think your folks are sleepin’, or do you think they’re bickerin’ quiet?”

  “Th-they’re sleeping,” Leah said. “They were kind tonight. I think it’s suh-sad that some people only act nuh-nice when muh-mean things happen.”

  “Then let’s get our bathin’ suits on.”

  Leah did so without question. They changed out of their pajamas and eased out into the hallway—Leah careful to point out where to walk so the floorboards wouldn’t creak—then made their way into the backyard. The night was clear and lit by a full moon that looked like a giant Chinese lantern hung in the sky. Allie led her to the inflatable swimming pool by the shed.

  “He here too?”

  “Yuh-yes,” Leah said. “Right beside us.”

  “Good. Because I don’t know if this’ll stick or not, or even if it’ll mean anything, but I reckon it’s worth a try. I don’t know what’s goin’ on here or what’s gonna happen, but I figure you’ll need some protection. You know, just in case.”

  Allie stepped into the middle of the pool, which was little more than a puddle of cold water that barely touched the midpoint between her ankles and knees. “I’m gonna baptize you, Leah Norcross.”

  Leah looked at the pool and then to Allie. “What’s that muh-mean?”

  “It means I’m gonna call down the Spirit on you. It’s kinda like bein’ born twice. Like a do-over, I guess. It means you love God and you want everybody to know it.”

  “But I duh-don’t know who God is.”

  “I think you maybe do. I think you maybe do more than anybody in this town. Now I ain’t gonna force this on you, ’cause Preacher Goggins says forcin’ God on unbelievin’ folk is plain wrong. So I’ll ask you this—do you love the Rainbow Man?”

  “Yuh-yes.”

  “And do you believe him?”

  “Yuh-yes.”

  “And will you do all the stuff he says to do, even if it’s stuff that hurts?”

  “I already h-have.”

  Allie didn’t know why, but that answer made the backs of her eyes burn. She lowered her head and said, “Okay then, come on in here and let me dunk you.”

  Leah stepped into the pool. Allie tried to position her in the same way Preacher Goggins did the new believers in the dunking pool behind his pulpit. She managed that, but then found another problem.

  “The water’s too shallow. I reckon we’ll have to get down on our knees.” She placed Leah in front of her, Allie facing ahead toward the side of the yard and Leah facing the hill where they first met. The water splashed as they sank down and gave Allie the shivers despite the warm night. She took a deep breath and stared at the sky.

  “Lord, this here’s Allie. Leah’s with me now. You know Leah, since I figure you mighta sent her a Rainbow Man. He’s here too, I reckon, though I don’t know where and I don’t wanna break Leah’s concentration by askin’ her. I’m gonna be baptizin’ her now. I don’t know if it’ll take, but I figure it’ll do till we can find a proper preacher who ain’t mad at her.” She looked from the sky to Leah. “Don’t be afraid now.”

  Moonlight shone on Leah’s face. Her cheeks were twitching, and her hands shook. “I-I-I’m nuh-not,” she said.

  “Okay then. Leah Norcross, do you believe?”

  Leah nodded.

  “You gotta speak it, Leah.”

  “I buh-lieve.”

  Allie couldn’t remember what came next, so she asked the question again. “Do . . . you . . . believe?”

  “I BUH-BUH . . . LIEVE.”

  “Then, Leah Norcross, in the name of God and Jesus and the Rainbow Man and the Holy Ghost, which might all be the same thing but I don’t know for sure and I’m sorry for that, I’m baptizin’ you right now.”

  Allie took hold of the back of Leah’s head with one hand and squeezed her nose with the other. Leah let out a muffled squeal, to which Allie whispered, “Don’t worry, I got ya.” She sank her friend’s rigid body into the pool and stopped when Leah’s head hit the bottom.

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Wh-what uh-oh?” Leah asked.

  “You ain’t all the way under. I don’t know if that means anything or not. Preacher Goggins always says you gotta get all wet.”

  “Wh-what do we do nuh-now?”

  “I don’t know. Roll around a few times and make sure you’re all covered.”

  Leah rolled over in the pool, rolled over again, then rolled a third time to make sure water touched her everywhere. Allie took hold of her shoulder and said, “Down with the old girl, and get up with the new.”

  She raised Leah out of the water. Long strands of dark hair clung to her face and neck. Bits of grass and drowned bugs stuck to her skin. But Allie noticed her friend was smiling for the first time since their awful night began. Whether the baptism would stick or not, that was good enough for her.

  “Feel better?” she asked.

  Leah nodded. “I luh-love you, Allie.”

  “I love you too, Leah.”

  She brushed the hair from Leah’s eyes. Shadows gathered over her face like flakes of black snow that fell diagonally rather than down. First one, then two, then more than Allie could count. She reached out to touch Leah’s face just as Leah reached for her own.

  “What’s wruh-wrong with your fuh-face, Allie?” she asked.

  The shadows weren’t just on their faces. They were on the surface of the water and the sides of the swimming pool. They were in the grass and on the shed and arcing over the side of the house. Everywhere.

  A cloud emerged from the edges of the lantern moon so thick that it nearly snuffed the light. Allie thought it was growing but then realized it was merely getting closer. Moving. Moving fast. It stretched out and thinned like a long finger and then swooped down upon them. Allie tried to scream and found her voice taken. Gray and white swirled around them like a rippling current, a dance that was at once violent and beautiful and hypnotic.

  “What are they?” Allie asked.

  “The-they’re muh-mockingbirds.”

  The birds gathered in a single funnel that surrounded them. The air was silent but for the flapping of wings. A hot wind stirred Leah’s hair. Hundreds—thousands—of tiny eyes sparkled in the moonlight. The mockingbirds rose upward over the trees, suspended in the night as if one body, and then they bloomed outward and spilled over town.

  7

  Leah sat at the end of the sofa in his office. A ball of thick tissues rested against her nose but could not stem the tears. They trickled down the ridges and valleys of the mottled bruises on her face. She wept, her body shuddering, and uttered,

  I’m suh-so suh-sorry.

  You don’t have to apologize for anything here, Leah. Have you given any thought to what we discussed last week?

  I’m a-a-afraid.

  I know.

  Do you th-think the R-rainbow M-man is puh-punishing me f-for the things I cuh-can’t buh-lieve? Do you thuh-think that’s what he’s duh-doing, Puh-Pops?

  No, Leah, I don’t. I just think you’re hurt. I’m going to help you.

  You c-can’t help me if you don’t buh-lieve, Puh-Pops. That’s j-just it. You c-can’t under—”

  The scream was in the back of Tom’s throat when he woke. He heaved in air and jerked. Beside him, Ellen slept. He wanted to wake her but didn’t. She would want to know what had frightened him so, and he would have to tell.

  He stared at the ceiling instead, telling himself it was okay, everything was okay, everything was fine.

  Outside the window, a mockingbird called.

  Wednesday


  Three Days Before the Carnival

  1

  The door struck the stop on the wall behind with a thunk, the force swinging it back as if to say move along, nothing to see in here, BLIMEY, CLOSED.

  Barney pulled the wheelchair from the entranceway before the door bumped it. His mouth opened to say, Sorry ’bout that, Mabel, reckon I gotta mind my own strength, but only “Sorry ’bout” came across his lips. The chair was empty. Why was he out in the hallway with Mabel’s chair?

  From downstairs came what sounded like a voice but was most likely wind. Barney rubbed his head and entered the still-dark living room. Spots of colors appeared in front of his eyes—swimming first, then flashing, wobbling his knees. He was not conscious of moving to the sofa, did not feel the pinch of settling onto the broken spring. Feeling and motion had become as involuntary as breathing and heartbeat—there, but not so much as to be noticed.

  He wondered how he’d managed to drive the old Dodge home, didn’t remember doing it, then remembered Reggie had brought him. Reggie had brought them both.

  Is that right?

  Yes, he reckoned. That’s what happened. Reggie had driven them home. Good old Reggie, who had prayed the Twenty-Third Psalm and smiled right along with Leah and Allie when the doctor announced Mabel was just fine after all.

  Is that right?

  The part of his mind that worked Barney’s heart and breaths whispered, Yes, that’s right. And then Reggie had said he would take them home, and Reggie was . . . where? Downstairs. Yes. Right. Because Barney had said he—no, they, he and Mabel—needed to get settled first. But where was Mabel? Had Barney already settled her? Had he been in the hallway to fetch Reggie?

  Through the open windows, waning moonlight merged with waxing dawn. A mockingbird called from a nearby rooftop. Hoary shadows splayed upon the decaying walls, giving the room a dormant glow. To Barney it felt as if the very façade of the world was slipping away, leaving him to straddle the cleft between flesh and spirit. The wheelchair seemed more an It than a thing.

  The lights remained off. Another voice in Barney’s mind whispered they should be on (Only a foolish old man traipses about in the dark, that voice said), but this was one act Barney would not allow his body to perform without him. The lights might wake Mabel

  (Is that right?)

  and he did not want to do that just yet. She’d had a long night. Besides, the good voice, the one that had gotten him from the hospital to outside the door, cautioned that lights would bring brightness, brightness would bring clarity, and clarity would bring a truth he may not want to allow. Barney preferred the darkness just now, that state bereft of bold lines and right angles to tell him what was there and what wasn’t. In the shadows nothing was ever really lost. Things were only hidden, and things never changed.

  But things have changed, the bad voice said.

  Barney called out, “Mabel?” in the way he always had. Both voices claimed victory when no one answered. One said it was because there was no one to answer. The other said that Mabel seldom answered at all so early in the morning. She had always been a deep sleeper, especially since her troubles. Not like Barney, who was always up with the birds.

  “I love you, Mabel.”

  A flicker in the corner caught his eye. Barney turned to see a flashing 14 on the answering machine. He tried to remember the phone ringing that many times and couldn’t, then decided the calls must have come while Leah had been healing Mabel. His finger moved to the Play button and froze when the good voice cautioned, Don’t you go doin’ that, Barney, you might not like what you hear. The wheelchair stared at him. It glowed in that alive way that Leah’s easel had. That had been four days earlier, and one day before she’d said he and Mabel were going to be just fine. Sitting alone in the shadows, Barney decided that was right. Leah had been touched by God, and they had both made his wife well, just as Mabel hadn’t answered because she’d always been a deep sleeper.

  The voices devolved from arguing to shouting. Barney thought he could chase them both away if he’d just check the bedroom. He could show the bad voice Mabel, curled up beneath the sheets. Then he could lie down and drape his arm across her—for warmth, yes, but also to make sure those lungs were working—and he could wake her proper. He could shake her lightly and whisper, and he could once more behold the precious gift of seeing her eyes meet his and hearing “I love you” from her lips.

  He heard shuffling downstairs. What could that be? Barney chuckled as the absurd thought of Reggie flashed in his mind. What would the preacher be doing downstairs at this hour? He rose from the sofa and walked down the small hallway. Both voices and the hoary shadows accompanied him. He paused at the bedroom doorway and wondered why he was afraid.

  Mabel was curled into a ball beneath the sheets. Her knees were drawn upward to her chest as though nurturing the small ember of life her body still possessed. Gray and orange mixed through the open windows. Barney moved to the side of the bed and eased himself in.

  “Mornin’, Mabel,” he whispered.

  She did not move. The shadows around her shimmered as if she too straddled the cleft between flesh and spirit.

  “Hey there. Time to get up now.”

  She’d always been a deep sleeper. Barney listened for the good voice to agree, but the only sounds were the sudden heavy thumping of his heart and a mockingbird outside. The lottery ticket crinkled in his pocket as he reached for Mabel’s shoulder.

  Barney’s hand closed around shadow.

  “Mabel?”

  His hand searched the cold, unwrinkled sheets where she’d lain, feeling for her, willing her to come back. The mockingbird sang that Mabel could not. Would not. It sang that Mabel was in a place where there is no before or later but only now, and it was a fair land without shadow.

  “But that ain’t so,” he cried.

  Gray surrendered to orange as morning struck the window. The only bit of Mabel left was a lone strand of silver hair on her pillow. Barney felt the chest pocket of his overalls and drew out what was inside. The mockingbird fell silent as the piece of paper was crushed and dropped to the floor. Barney took the strand of hair with two fingers and, minding his own strength, carefully placed it into his chest pocket.

  The good voice spoke a final time in the tongue of more shuffling from the floor beneath him. In that small fragment of the human heart where lies are spun to ensnare truth, Barney believed that sound was Mabel waiting for him downstairs. He did not pause to hear if that was right. He ran, shouting Mabel’s name, saying he was coming, that everything would be just fine.

  2

  The hard task of spreading the news of Mabel’s death fell to Reggie, and his first call was to Brent Spicer. Five in the morning wasn’t early for the deacon, as Brent started milking his cows two hours earlier. The conversation was going as well as could be expected. Brent was a good man, but his thoughts lived in a world of sunshine and fretted about the shadows.

  Reggie told Brent he wasn’t sure if Mabel’s passing was judgment for Barney’s foolish act or grace for her own condition or simply another part of the Mystery. No, there had been no discussion of a funeral date. There had been no discussion of anything, really. Poor Barney’d been in such a state that he hadn’t accepted what had happened. It had taken Reggie nine full hours to convince his old friend it was time to go home.

  “Lemme know,” Brent said. “I’ll pass word through the prayer line.”

  “Thanks, Brent. I’ll give you a call when Barney’s worked things out.”

  Reggie hadn’t mentioned Leah and didn’t say that Mabel’s passing would have gone much smoother had the Norcross girl not been there. Five generations of Spicers were buried in a small corner of Brent’s farm beneath stone crosses; he did not approve of people from Away, especially when those people went about speaking false prophecy and conjuring spirits.

  From upstairs came “I love you, Mabel,” and Reggie heard a sorrow and a fear in the voice.

  He gripped the banister a
nd took two steps before pausing. Let the man grieve, Reggie told himself. Outside, a mockingbird sang its night song as morning neared. Reggie couldn’t remember wanting to say good-bye to a day more than the one finally slipping away around him. He spent the next moments helping as he could by straightening the mess left over from yesterday’s business. Leah’s painting hung in the window. Reggie tried to ignore it and found he couldn’t.

  A stack of papers sat by the register. Reggie recognized them as the ones Barney had handed out to Allison Summers and the man with the holey pockets. He put the broom down and went to the counter. There were at least a hundred of the slips, all in a pile almost as thick as Reggie’s fist. He took one off the top and turned it over, turned over the next, then shuffled through the remainder.

  They were all work orders. Not for marble rollers or dollhouses or wagons, but for easels.

  “Oh, Barney,” he whispered.

  From the top of the stairs came shouts of “Mabel, I’s comin’! Ever’thing’s gonna be just fine.”

  Reggie placed the papers back onto the counter and ran. He reached the mouth of the staircase and held his hands out, fully aware of the uselessness of that gesture. If Barney kept running, the only thing that would likely stop him would be the window. A brief thought passed through Reggie’s mind that doing so might not be such a bad thing. That would at least take care of Leah’s painting, even if the damage from that had likely already been done.

  “Barney, it’s me. It’s Reggie.”

  Barney stopped. His body was turned to the side, his feet on successive steps. His face was red with tears, eyes wide and searching. It was as if he’d just awakened into a nightmare.

  “Reggie?” he breathed. “I left Mabel down here, I think. After you . . .”

  Reggie tried to settle himself. “After I what, Barney?”

  “Mabel?” he called.

  “After I what? Remember, Barney?”

  “Mabel, where are you?”

  Reggie took one step up and tried a quick prayer to summon the Still Small Voice. All he received was more mockingbird from somewhere outside. He placed his hand upon the banister and slid it upward until it rested on Barney’s.