Nightingale's Nest

by Nikki Loftin

  “Fine,” Dad said, obviously uncomfortable with leaving me there. “I’ll call when I need you.”

  I grabbed my water bottle from the truck and ran around back. I could already hear Gayle singing in her nest, so I knew right where to go to get her. “Get down from there,” I yelled. “I told you that tree has a bad branch.” A hundred birds took flight when they heard my voice, though, and for a second, I couldn’t even see Gayle for all the fluttering wings. The birds twittered angrily, and at least two of them pooped on my shirt as they left. I wiped it off, and frowned up at the nest. I couldn’t even see Gayle’s head—she had to be hunkered down really low. Was she hiding from someone? “Gayle?”

  “Oh, it’s you,” she called back, and scrambled down, carrying something in her hand. “I got something for you,” she said. She popped her head over the top of the wooden fence—how had she climbed it that fast? I swear, I thought, the girl is at least half-bird herself. Or squirrel—and shook her closed fist at me. “Well, come on,” she said, “it’s for you.”

  “What is it?” I asked, taking her wrist to help her hop off the fence. When she was on Mr. King’s side, she let out a giant breath, like she’d gotten away from something. Jeb? I wondered. She was in a long-sleeve shirt again—the same one as yesterday and the day before. It was dirty as all get out, and her hair had more sticks in it than a real bird’s nest. “Hang on,” I said, and started picking at the twigs, throwing them down.

  “Stop it,” she said. “That don’t matter. This does.”

  She opened her fist. In the palm of her hand was a rock. It wasn’t just a rock, though, it was quartz, and someone had shined it up until it sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. “Oh, that’s pretty,” I said, taking it. “Are you sure you want to give it to me? I don’t have anything for you.”

  “You can bring me something tomorrow,” she said. “And when you get done being scared of climbing trees, you can see my nest. It’s got all sorts of good stuff in it. You’d like it. I’ll let you pick three more things, maybe.” She smiled like a cat. “But you gotta climb up.”

  “I’m not climbing that tree,” I said, my heart pounding at the very thought. “And I’m sure as heck not gonna go out on a branch that might be rotten.” My voice must have sounded sharper than I intended, because Gayle’s lip quivered.

  “But I like this rock an awful lot,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She didn’t say you’re welcome, just put her hand in mine and walked with me toward the Emperor’s house.

  “I still don’t like him,” she said, as we got close enough to see the man’s face peeking through the curtains at the back window.

  “I know,” I said. I didn’t say what else I was thinking—me neither. “But he’s all alone. And he wants to hear you sing.” I shrugged. “I can understand it. Your voice is . . . something else.”

  “For you.” Gayle hugged my waist and followed me up the porch steps to the back door.

  The door opened as we got there, and the Emperor stepped out. “Welcome, dear girl,” he said to Gayle. He was holding a handful of peppermint candy canes out to her like birdseed to a pigeon. He looked kind of like a creepy kidnapper, and I had a thought about grabbing Gayle and turning her around.

  But she surprised me. She smiled and shook her head. “It’s hard to sing my best with food in my mouth. Momma always said to eat afters.”

  “Oh.” Mr. King looked at me, obviously confused. He straightened up. “Well, I’ll save it for you for . . . afters.”

  It was strange, entering the house from the back. The hallway we walked into couldn’t have been more different from the front—instead of wood paneling and fancy china plates, there were oil paintings of sunflowers and sunsets. I blinked and stepped closer to one of the paintings. The sunflowers in it had faces. Smiling sunflowers? It reminded me of my aunt Linda’s paintings, the hobby she’d taken up after her husband—Mom’s brother, her only family left alive by then—had died. For six years, until Aunt Linda followed him, everyone in the family had received an original masterpiece, usually of ladybugs with too many spots or happy bumblebees with eyes bigger than their wings. I had three of them in my room.

  Gayle giggled. “I like them,” she whispered.

  Mr. King must have heard, since he stopped and cleared his throat. “Thank you. My wife, Inga. She loved to paint.” He paused again. “She was a singer, too. I would listen to her for hours . . .”

  I didn’t say anything. Neither did Gayle. We just looked at each other, then back at Mr. King. I didn’t know if it was the hallway, or his expression, but somehow, he didn’t seem so threatening anymore. He seemed small, like he’d shrunk overnight. Empty. His wife had died, I guess. I felt kind of sorry for him.

  I guess Gayle did, too. “Listen,” she said, and—still holding mine—she took his hand and began to sing. Outside, the sound had traveled over the grass and through the soft morning air. In the cool hallway, it was almost overwhelmingly beautiful. Somehow, in her song, I could hear a story.

  A bird, flying alone, far from home, wings beating until the bird began to falter and fall to the ground below. The wind whistled through its wings, through splayed, worn-out feathers. The bird sighed into the cold air one last time, its eyes almost closing . . . and then, something appeared. Glimmered, there, at the edge of the horizon. A tree? An aspen, with shining leaves that turned and caught the fading light, then called in a voice like a mermaid’s, “Come here, come home.” Its branches, streaming leaves of silver in the air, waved and beckoned, guiding the bird home.

  The song stopped. I opened my eyes. The Emperor was standing there, his hand in hers, his body shaking. His eyes were shut, but tears were streaming down his face, past his nose and his . . . smile?

  “Thank you, child,” he said, and Gayle smiled up at him, the dirt on her face less obvious in this light. She could have been his granddaughter, from the way they were looking at each other.

  “Do you feel better?” she asked. “Can we go outside now?” She smiled at me. “Tree’s dad is calling.”

  “Tree?” Mr. King looked confused.

  “Little John,” she corrected herself. I heard Dad then, too, calling my name. Wondering where I was, it sounded like, and none too happy.

  “Yes, I do feel better,” he said, “But won’t you sing for me one more time?” He started to pull her into the hallway, toward his music room. I followed a few steps behind.

  Gayle looked toward me, worry creasing her face. “But we have to go,” she said, whimpered.

  “One more song, dear,” he said, “and then candy, remember?”

  Gayle brightened at that. “Can I have more than one?” she asked.

  “John!” I heard Dad’s voice, too loud, in the backyard.

  “I gotta go,” I said, wondering what to do.

  “We’ll be fine, won’t we?” Mr. King asked Gayle. “Go on and help your dad. We’re just going to sing and then eat some candy.” He nodded at me, impatient for me to go. “I’ll pay you later.”

  “Gayle?” I said. Had she picked up on that—the paying part? But she hadn’t. She was staring at the plates on the wall in the dark hallway ahead of us.

  “Birds,” she said softly. She walked over to one and touched the metal prongs of the plate hangers that held them, claw-like, fastened to the wall. “They’re all birds.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. King. But he wasn’t looking at the plates; he was staring at her. Light glinted in his eyes. They looked more than ever like a crow’s—wanting to collect the shiny thing it saw, steal it, and take it back to its nest.

  His voice was soft, mesmerizing. “I love birds, don’t you? I have a special sort of aviary, did you know that?” And with that, before I could protest again, he led her into the recording room and shut the door.

  “John!” My dad’s voice carried all the way into the front hallway, and I ran
for the door. If I didn’t show my face, I was going to be in a lot more danger than Gayle might be.

  I’d apologize to her later.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” I promised the closed door, and raced out into the hot cicada buzz of late morning.

  I’d never worked so hard or so fast in my life. Dad had yelled for a while, then given me an extra job to do before lunch, my punishment for “running off to play.” He made me promise to apologize to Mr. King for not doing the gardening like he’d asked—I didn’t explain there hadn’t ever been any gardening to do in the first place; that would raise too many questions. All I could think about the whole time I was splitting wood was Gayle. My axe would rise, and I would remember the look in her eyes when he took her hand—and the axe would fall, and the sound was that of the recording room door slamming shut. Before I knew it, I was out of logs to split.

  “Where’s the girl?”

  I jumped. Dad had walked up behind me so quietly, I hadn’t heard a thing. “Here,” he said, and handed me my water bottle, full again with icy water from the big cooler he kept in the back of the truck.

  “Thanks.”

  “The girl?” he asked again.

  “Oh, I think she went around back of the Emperor’s house,” I said. “Looking for snails? I saw her a while ago,” I lied. “Maybe I oughta go check on her.”

  Dad just spat into the grass. “Don’t let me hear you say that, son. Ever.” His voice was like a coiled rattlesnake.

  “What, sir?” I blinked. His brows had lowered like I’d done something terrible. Did he know I’d lied? I flushed hot, then cold.

  “Don’t you ever let me hear you call him Emperor,” Dad said, each word slow and precise. “He’s nothing but a man. A man who made money off honest folk’s work. And I’ve heard worse, too. He’s spoiled, used to getting his way. Remember one thing—just because a man’s rich don’t mean he’s good. You call him Mr. King, and nothing else. And don’t trust him.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, taking another swig of water, pouring some on my overheated neck. With every word Dad said, I felt worse about leaving Gayle. “Can I go check on her now?” I asked. I was starting to get worried. She hadn’t come out of the house, not out here anyway. That was an awful long time to record one song. If anything happened to her . . . it would be my fault. I had promised her I’d be there.

  A flock of starlings shot past overhead, screeching like they were being chased by something fearsome. They were flying as fast as they could, straight away from Mr. King’s house.

  Something was wrong. “I gotta go!” I burst out and took off running.

  I was at the house in less than a minute.

  I didn’t bother knocking. I grabbed the door handle, but it wouldn’t turn.

  Locked. It hadn’t been locked before. Then I did knock, loud, on the wood. I looked for a bell, but there wasn’t one. Just a large brass knocker hanging in the middle of the door, a lion with a loop of metal in his teeth. His eyes glared down at me. I lifted the knocker but dropped it back down when I heard something—a laugh? a cry? a cough?—coming from inside.

  The back door.

  I ran. My feet crushed the blue flowers where they fell, rose brambles scraped my arms as I ignored the pathway—it was too far from the rear of the house—and cut through the garden.

  I ran through the door, which was still unlocked. That was good, right? I thought. Nothing too terrible could happen inside an unlocked house.

  I knew I was just trying to make myself feel better. It wasn’t working. The back hallway was empty, and I raced for the recording room, hoping Gayle was all right.

  I never should have left her, I thought. I should have listened to her. I had just reached the door to the recording room when a shaft of light fell across the carpet at my side.

  “John? What are you doing?” It was Mr. King, standing in the doorway to what looked like a kitchen. I could see a stove behind him, a large stainless steel one, with more knobs and handles than I’d ever seen on an appliance. A stove, and behind it a sink . . . and Gayle standing in front of the sink, her back to me. She was looking out the window. I couldn’t see her face, couldn’t tell if she was upset.

  “Gayle,” I said, shouldering past Mr. King. “Gayle? It’s time to go.”

  She turned to me. She didn’t look upset—or at least she hadn’t been crying—but her eyes reminded me of my mother’s. Hollow, and haunted.

  Gayle paused, like she was going to say something. She even opened her mouth and worked her jaw like she was trying to talk. But no sounds came out.

  Like whatever she had to tell me, she couldn’t bear to say yet.

  She let out a rattling breath and pushed past me without looking at my face. Her hand was closed around what looked like a candy cane, one that had been licked until the sticky red candy had oozed over her fingers.

  Her fingers were white, like she’d been holding the candy too tightly, for too long.

  “Good-bye, dear,” Mr. King said to her. His smile was satisfied. “You can come over anytime. I’d love to record your voice again. And you’re welcome to listen to the recording a few more times as well—it will help you learn to hear the flaws, and correct them.” He shook his head. “I wish I had the expertise to truly train your voice. Maybe if I hired an instructor to come to my house and help you, they could—” he broke off. “Never mind that.”

  He reached out to touch her hair as she passed, but Gayle shrank back.

  She practically ran out of the room, leaving me to face Mr. King on my own. Which was just what I wanted.

  I took a ragged breath. “What did you do to her?” My voice seemed to get lower with each word, and I straightened up, stepping closer until I towered over him. He had a bald spot on the top of his head, a shiny round one the size of a chicken’s egg. I wanted to smash it, to pound my fists into it until he told me what had made Gayle run away like that.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, his smile as slick as oil on pond water. “I recorded Gayle’s voice. She has the most amazing voice, you know.” His eyes grew unfocused. And then, unconsciously, he licked his lips. “So artless, so trusting.”

  Trusting? I wondered what he was talking about. “What did you do?” I yelled into his face.

  No smile now. “Exactly what I intended. I added her voice to my collection,” he said, his brows low. “Thank you for bringing her over. Now get out of my house.” He glanced down at my work clothes, and I was suddenly aware of the wide sweat stains from the morning’s work and the small rips in my shirt I’d earned cutting his trees. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your money.”

  Like money was all I cared about. Like he could pay me for the look in Gayle’s eyes.

  I was afraid. Not afraid of him, although the memory of his threat rang in my mind. No, I was afraid I might punch him if I stayed that close. So I turned on my heel and left the kitchen, following the way I thought Gayle would have taken.

  The back door was slightly open, and I ran through it, not bothering to shut it myself. I ran toward the Cutlins’ property, stopping at the fence.

  “Gayle?” I called. There were no birds in the sycamore, no singing coming from the nest. But I knew she was there.

  “Gayle?” I said softer. “Are you all right?”

  The nest trembled a little, and I heard a soft hiccup of a sob.

  In the distance, a crow cawed, ugly and short. She didn’t answer, didn’t speak.

  “What happened?” I asked, feeling something growing inside me, something red and twisted, smoking like a bonfire fed too much fuel, too fast. “What happened in there?”

  Another sob was all I heard, and then an exhalation, thready and slow, like Gayle had decided breathing was too hard, and she was giving it up.

  I wanted to climb the tree, to crawl into the nest with her. I put my hand on the fence
. I would climb over. I would climb the tree, talk to her. I didn’t have to be afraid of a stupid tree.

  But I couldn’t make myself move—the thought of going up there made me break out in a cold sweat.

  “Gayle, come down,” I panted. “Talk to me.”

  I heard my dad’s voice far behind me, calling my name. “Little John! Get back here!”

  I hated myself. But I had too much hate building up inside to spend it all on me. “I’m coming,” I promised. But I wasn’t answering my dad. I was talking to Mr. King.

  I turned and walked—no, stalked—back to Mr. King’s house.

  He and I were going to have words. I knew it wasn’t smart; in fact, it was plain stupid.

  But staring up at Gayle’s nest, I’d felt scared and sick, the way I’d felt ten months before, watching my little sister twist like a fast-falling leaf, plummet toward the ground in front of me, while I couldn’t help her—couldn’t reach her. I had been too small, too weak.

  I wasn’t small and weak now. I was strong and big. I hadn’t protected Raelynn. And now, when I’d decided to watch out for Gayle, I’d let her down, too.

  Maybe I couldn’t chop down every tree in the world to keep all the little girls safe. But I could make sure that man in the fancy house never got near one again.

  He didn’t answer the back door, so I ran around to the front. But instead of punching him in the face, or yelling at him, or whatever it was I’d been thinking of doing—I wasn’t too sure at that point, the buzzing of anger in my head had drowned out most of the logical thought—I stopped.

  My dad was standing there with him, the two of them leaning over the front railing and talking like they were old friends. I couldn’t believe it—I didn’t believe it. Dad hated Mr. King.

  “Why are you talking to him?” I blurted out. “You don’t know what he’s done.”

  Both of the men looked down the railing at me, but only Dad spoke. “Boy, you better watch that mouth of yours,” he said. “Show some respect.” His eyes said more than that—they were full of anger, and caution, and—fear?