A Murder of Magpies

by Sarah Bromley

  “I thought about everything that happened that night,” he said. “I wanted to know what I did wrong, but I don’t know. It’s not that I’m gadje, as you call it. But I know that’s part of it.”

  I took a deep breath, nodding. “It’s some of it, Ward. I’m trying to figure out things.”

  “Okay then. I have a hard time believing that’s all it is, but I can be patient, if it’s for you. You’re not easy.”

  “You were hoping I’d be easy?”

  “That came out wrong.” He gave a true laugh and took my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “I like you, Vayda. I mean, really like you.”

  I liked him, my gadjo, too. Not only because of the quiet.

  I listened to his breathing. Our noses touched, and I tilted my face to bring our mouths closer. There would be no running this time. His lips skimmed mine as if testing my temperature before his mouth opened the kiss wider. I draped my arms over his shoulders and slid my fingers through his hair. He leaned back against the wall and swung me in front of him so that I pinned him to the old brick. We kissed until our mouths ached and our lips were exhausted, but even then, we didn’t stop.

  ***

  By seven, the shop was closed. Ward hugged me goodnight as Chris arrived.

  “You ever have something happen that you can’t explain?” I asked.

  His chin rested against the top of my head. “Not every little thing is meant to be explained.”

  Except what I hid from him wasn’t some little thing, and I had no idea how to tell him. If I could ever tell him.

  An hour later, my head ached from working too long at the computer, and my mind wandered away from editing photos for the shop’s website. Cardinal rule: Idle hands do the devil’s work, and Dad made sure that, if nothing else, we found ways to keep busy. I was starved, and we wouldn’t eat until nine, though that didn’t stop me from daydreaming about food. Fresh herbs. A tangy vinaigrette.

  “Will you stop thinking about food?” Jonah asked as he checked off items on an inventory list. “I’m so hungry I could eat this paper.”

  “I’ll give you five bucks if you actually do,” I said.

  “Got some salt?”

  He sat in his favorite chair, a horseshoe-shaped number he and Mom restored. Together, they covered the cushions with a patchwork of reclaimed leather. Fate smiled when Jonah kept his chair at Antiquaria instead of home and again when Rain shipped it with the first load of inventory to Fire Sales.

  He swiveled toward me. “Don’t think I don’t notice you eyeballing my chair. You best not put an evil eye on it.”

  “I don’t care about your chair,” I said. “It’s yet another thing you and Mom did together.”

  He wrapped his hands around the back of his head. “Whatever you think Mom taught me about Mind Games, you’re way off-base.”

  “Am I?”

  My brother’s lips were a grim line as he examined the inventory list, but I glared at him harder. He rubbed the back of his neck and pretended it didn’t bother him. Except the pulse in his neck told me otherwise. Tell me I’m wrong about Mom, that she didn’t pick a favorite from the two of us.

  “Mom never excluded you,” Jonah said. “You avoided her.”

  It was true. I couldn’t change the past. Jonah missed what he had with Mom. I missed not only what I didn’t have but also what could never be.

  He combed his fingers through my hair. His big hands weren’t quite dexterous enough to be relaxing, but he tried.

  “Think what you want about Mom,” he said. “It’s not like she can prove you wrong. I don’t know what else you want to hear.”

  I wanted to hear what Jonah remembered, how the night Mom died haunted him.

  Because I remembered.

  I remembered the frost nipping at my skin, the acidic smell of burning peach trees, and gravel digging into my bare feet as we staggered along the country road to Rain’s house, the only safe place we knew. My godfather charged down the steps of his farmhouse, and with ashes stinging our noses, we gazed over the treetops in the direction of our house where the night glowed amber.

  The heel of my palm blotted away tears before they slipped down my cheeks. Mom was gone, and I was angry. Angry at her favoring Jonah, for recklessly using her Mind Games. Angry at her for dying.

  “Ready to call it a night?” Dad asked before his final lock-up of the shop.

  Jonah passed off the inventory list to Dad. He allowed our father’s arm to wrap around his shoulder. Warmth filled my chest as they stood so close. Though Jonah still reveled in the attention from Chloe, whatever came over him unclenched him from its grip. That gave me hope.

  Glass shattered in the showroom.

  Before I could make sense of what happened, my chest smacked the ground. Jonah pushed me down and shielded me with his body. My breath rushed out in a single, hard punch. Dad crouched beside us. Dazed and numb, we held still while a hush fell over Fire Sales except our breathing and the soft tinkle of tiny glass shards raining on the floor.

  Jonah rolled off me and whispered, “What the hell was that?”

  Ignoring the cold dread stalking me, I sent out my feelers and stumbled through the panic trailing out of my father.

  “Stay here,” he ordered.

  The hairs on my forearms prickled. I couldn’t sit by doing nothing and snuck over to the door to the showroom, trying to glimpse between the furniture and darkness.

  “You there, stop!” Dad yelled. The bells by the entrance jingled. “What the hell are you doing?”

  I raced into the showroom, working on instinct instead of thought. Dad was gone. Glass shards scattered over the floor by the window. A hole smashed the glass, fissures cracking to the corners, and my gaze fell to a rock on the floor. This felt too vicious to be a prank.

  Running, I made it outside seconds after Jonah. Dad was halfway down the block, chasing someone. Two storefronts were behind me when the heel on my right shoe snapped. Knee-first, I hit the sidewalk, concrete biting my palms. “Shit!”

  Jonah whipped around. “You okay?”

  My skirt was torn, and I hiked up the fabric to examine my bloody knee. Every beat from my pulse rattled my bones. Jonah put my arm around his waist and helped me walk a few steps toward the shop. Dad’s footfalls slowed as he gave up the chase, retreating to join Jonah and me.

  “I couldn’t keep up,” he panted.

  “What are you gonna do?” I asked.

  He shook his head, not ready to talk, and noticed the blood running in a hot trail along my shin. “Hang tight. I’ll get the first-aid kit from the shop.”

  Unable to put much weight on my leg, I let go of Jonah and slouched with my back to the brick wall. The scrape wasn’t deep, but my knee would swell something fierce. Dad halted in front of Fire Sales, one hand covering his mouth. Jonah went to his side, and a moment later, a frightened blast shot from him. I raised my barriers to hold off the anxiety and pushed through the pain to walk.

  Dad clutched Jonah’s shoulder. “Now, boy, we can’t jump to conclusions.”

  “Someone knows about us!” Jonah shouted. “You swore you handled it!”

  “Quiet!” Dad massaged his temples. His fear whizzed over my skin, flickering and sick. “Let’s get your sister taken care of.”

  I edged closer, cringing from the fire in my knee, when more glass shattered. My arms covered my head as the window of some stranger’s car parked curbside blasted apart. Blue fragments of glass glittered under the streetlight, and then the window of another car cracked into a spider web.

  “Jonah, stop!” I screamed.

  He shook his hands free of energy. I felt his anger. His terror. It crawled up me and burrowed into my veins. His face appeared gaunt and wary. “Why won’t they leave us alone?”

  “Because we don’t know who ‘they’ are,” Dad answered. He tried to sound firm, but his voice shook. “We’ll fig
ure it out. Calm down.”

  Dad scooped me into his arms and carried me down the cobblestone toward Fire Sales. My lips parted, and I jerked my head from side to side, searching for someone in the shadows. Someone spray-painted bright red letters on the bricks below the broken window, the paint still wet and dripping like blood.

  Freaks

  Chapter Twelve

  Vayda

  Mom slices cucumbers in the kitchen while Rain sips a beer and places his hand on the slope of her back. Her head swivels toward him, amused, and his fingers move to her shoulders for a one-armed hug.

  From the vegetable garden, I can’t make out much through the cloudy window over the sink, but I see enough. He says something that doubles her over with giggles. She peeks over her shoulder, and I drop a clump of basil leaves into my basket. A moment later, the backdoor clatters with Mom scurrying down the steps. She has the body of a retro pin-up girl, even dresses like one with her cigarette pants and kitten heels. With a flick of her wrist, the basket of herbs leaps from my hands to hers.

  “Vayda, baby,” she intones, “Rain don’t mean no harm. That fella’s buttering me up so I’ll be in court tomorrow. I gotta put a feeler on the jury for him.”

  I yank a zucchini off the vine. “Dati said you were done meddling.”

  “It ain’t meddling if you’re opening up people to the truth. A freed mine is a sound mind.”

  ***

  “Not going out tonight?” I hollered over Frank Zappa’s winding rock on Jonah’s stereo.

  He muted his music. His history textbook was open beside him, but a Wordsworth biography was in his hands.

  “Chloe asked, but whatever. If she wants to come by Fire Sales after I close, well, I’m not gonna stop her.” He broke into a lusty grin.

  “She’s not a game, Jonah.”

  “Sure, she is. Twister.”

  I crossed my arms over my black dress. “That’s not funny. You shouldn’t be playing her like that.”

  “I’m kidding. Geez.” He glanced at the lamp on his nightstand, the bulb switching on by his will alone. “Lighten up.”

  “Chloe likes you. A lot.”

  “Yeah, so much she ditched me in front of our entire algebra class last year. She called me a loser. You know what it’s like to have even the nuns laugh at you?” He smiled and shut his textbook. “It’s in the past. She’s done with letting other people control her. Right now, I’m having a good time with her. I won’t hurt her.”

  The way he said it, he was promising. I hoped like hell he’d keep it.

  His energy boiled under his skin as he stretched. He gestured to my black tea-dress with a plum-colored cardigan. I’d paired it with knee-high boots. “You look pretty, Sis. How’s your knee?”

  I’d nearly forgotten about the scrape and swelling. In two weeks, I’d healed pretty well. Still a little bruised on the outside. On the inside, I felt like I was still bleeding. At the shop, the window had been repaired, but Dad, Jonah, and I knew it wasn’t the same. Real or not, the cracks remained.

  “I’m okay,” I replied.

  Jonah cocked his head. “Vayda, did you try searching out whoever did it?”

  I hadn’t. I couldn’t. Any time I even got close to where the bricks were painted, such fear came over me that I wanted to run away screaming.

  Jonah understood even without me answering. “Then we won’t know who did it unless someone confesses. Dad said the police think it was someone screwing around.”

  “But we know it’s not true.”

  “Believe it’s true. At least for tonight.”

  The doorbell rang. I descended the stairs in time to find Dad fixing the collar of Ward’s black oxford shirt. I’d noticed he didn’t have many clothes, but I hadn’t ever seen his dark trousers paired with this unbuttoned vest. With the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his scars were darker than usual, and, of course, he wore his boots—now artfully mended with electrical tape. He handed me a single green-white rose. “For you.”

  Like a gentleman, Ward led me outside to Chris’s Jaguar and opened my door. The engine made hardly a sound as he started the motor. An acoustic ballad by Iron & Wine greeted my ears. Sparks crackling over my skin, he kissed me, teeth grazing my lip before he drew back.

  “I like kissing you,” I murmured.

  He wet his lips. “I’d do more if you wanted to.”

  His words hung in the air, expecting a response.

  And in a breath, the moment to say something passed, though his words lingered, ghostly and playing again and again in my mind.

  After finding a parking space outside Café du Chat Noir, Ward killed the engine, and we made our way to the crowd standing on the sidewalk. December had brought more cold, and I wished I’d brought my coat. Ward wrapped his arms around my shoulders, his comforting warmth coursing down my arms and through my skin. In the weeks since he’d kissed me in Fire Sales, we spent a lot of time together, whether at the shop or him teaching me to play guitar on one he loaned me when he came to the stone house in the woods. We might slip away and kiss, protected by the quiet I had with him. That night was different. Expectation hung in the air. So much promise.

  The doors to the coffee shop opened, and the crowd pushed inside.

  The café smelled of flowery body-splash and espresso. A college student did a decent job of covering Billie Holiday and Etta James. Ward and I loitered at the edge of a makeshift dance floor and watched a few couples spin before he stopped hedging.

  “I suppose you want to dance,” he said.

  “Actually, I thought we’d hold a séance.” I gestured to the tables lit by candles and wiggled my brows. “How weird are you willing to get with me?”

  He laughed until he coughed. Vayda scored again.

  I led him into the crowd where his palms grew clammy. “I’m sorry,” he blurted and clumsily wiped his hands on his trousers. His feet were glued in place as he swayed with his hands dusting my hips.

  “I’ll never make you dance again, gadjo,” I promised.

  “Not close enough to calling this even.” He lifted his foot off mine and cringed. “You’ve got me so strung to agree to this.”

  I released my barriers, but the static of everyone’s thoughts in the crowd was crushing. It must have been my rattled nerves, even with Ward there to hush everything. Chaotic babble, no words in the clutter. Cold and hot patches on my skin hurt as my stomach swam with too much energy.

  Ward stopped dancing. “You don’t look so hot.”

  I laid my cheek against his shoulder, our feet still, and his arms curled around me to hold me close. “Sometimes I feel like I’m going to fall.”

  “I won’t let you fall.”

  “There are times it hits me so hard that I can’t tell it’s coming. Next thing I know, I’m going down.”

  He pushed my hair behind my ear, and I lifted my face. “Well, in that case, you can drag my sorry ass down with you.”

  Over the course of the next hour, we took to the floor only when the beat was slow enough that Ward could trot along. The closer he was to me, the less noise rattled in my head. When the singer’s voice began to croak rather than croon, the stereo came on. Within a few measures, I recognized the lyrics of a man lamenting how he hurt his girl. Ward’s expression darkened, and he stalked off the dance floor.

  Giving him a minute to himself, I purchased two coffees con panna and joined him at a secluded table. I trailed my finger along his arm. I could pry him open, if I wanted, but that was Jonah’s style. He sipped his coffee and fidgeted with a leather cord he wore looped around his wrist as a makeshift bracelet.

  “Why so blue?” I asked when the song was over and the next song on the album began.

  He replied, “This is Drake’s music.”

  This band, the Unkindness of Ravens, was his dad’s? My parents owned Drake’s albums. All of them. Why didn’t Ward tell me his dad was fa
mous? He admitted one time that his father was a musician, and that was all he gave up. Yet it was obvious once I knew. Ward’s voice—it twinned his dad’s baritone. He took after Drake, too, more than I suspected he cared to admit. How did he deal with Drake popping up on the radio at any given time? I eased my hand inside his, drawing a current both reviled and sorrowful.

  “Tell me about Drake.”

  Ward moved his face close to mine. Whatever he intended to say was only for me. “He was on the cover of Rolling Stone, which he was proud of. Had it in a frame on the wall. He spent a lot of time at his buddy’s studio in Minneapolis. I’d be alone in Rochester for days. When he was around, he read a lot, liked old movies. During the last year, something changed. He slurred when he talked after one of his overdoses.” A panicked expression crossed his face, and he gulped his coffee. “I can’t talk about this, Vayda. Not tonight.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Ask me anything as long as it’s not about him.”

  For all the time we spent together, he rarely spoke of his past. His life in Minnesota was a mystery. I wanted to know more. He wanted to pretend it never happened. The past wasn’t like that. You couldn’t hollow it out and discard it like an unwanted peach pit. Sometimes memories were so hard and stony they cracked your teeth when you bit down on them.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

  “You.”

  I cleared my throat and threw him a crumb. “My mom read tarot cards in Dati’s shop.”

  He drummed his thumb on the table. “So I suppose you’ve got psychic powers, too?”

  My heart hitched. “No! Of course not.”

  “Why’d she do it?” he asked. “For fun? ’Cause she actually predicted the future?”

  “Because she was my mother. That’s what her vitsa raised her to be. That’s all she knew how to do.”

  I reached over and took his left hand. My mother said the left hand was the one men were born with, while their right was all the life experience they’d gathered into them.