Where Bluebirds Fly (Synesthesia-Shift Series)

by Brynn Chapman

  His own was like mint. Ram had informed him the ability was termed synesthesia, or a mixing of the senses.

  “Please, I won’t harm you! Are you hurt? Just—wait!” Her foot slipped into the green. The sole was bleeding.

  Hurdling a patch of flattened stalks, he reached the first circle of the corn maze. His woman in white, and she was indeed, a young woman, was now clearly visible.

  Her chest heaved and the mystery girl bolted again, barreling down the path as if the devil were chasing her. Her old-fashioned ivory nightdress flowed behind her like she’d leapt from the pages of Wuthering Heights.

  “Miss, stop! I won’t hurt you! Please, you’re bleeding!”

  The figure reached the bridge, one of four placed in the cardinal directions in the maze. Lady in white sprinted up the northern-most bridge, leaving her bloody footprints in her wake.

  Thick, auburn hair, in old-fashioned ringlets, bounced as she ran. The woman paused at the apex, and swiveled, with a slow, deliberate turn.

  Their eyes locked.

  His chest contracted like a knee to the ribs.

  Her eyes were like…an open window. His emotions roller-coastered with fear—pain—longing and yearning.

  He shook his head, refocusing. Now, they only looked terrified. And old—ninety year old eyes in a nineteen year old face.

  He swallowed reflexively. They reminded him of holocaust photographs.

  “Who are you?”

  The tip of his trainer touched the first board of the bridge as her head shot to the right, breaking their eye contact.

  Truman rushed her.

  A low moan cut out of the corn’s depths followed by a rhythmic, creaking sound—repeating in metronome-fashion. Like an auditory pendulum.

  Her head whirled toward the sound and her fingers clawed her face.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Her thighs tensed and she bolted, tearing down the other end of the bridge. She leapt—and was airborne. And evaporated. Into nothing.

  Truman stopped as the world shuddered.

  How? His mind pleaded.

  The air liquefied before him; it quivered, thickened, like heat on a summer’s day. Poking it with his index finger resulted in a feeling reminiscent of thick treacle. He blinked. He couldn’t see his fingertips.

  He wrenched them out with a gnawing sensation chewing up his gut.

  Unnatural, was the only word for it. The sticky feeling melted, along with the optical illusion of thickened air.

  His insides quivered. His hand covered his mouth. He couldn’t move.

  Did I imagine it? A woman? One I created?

  His pulse surged; its pounding and gurgling drowned out the windstorm.

  His daily fear whispered. Am I losing it? Is my childhood finally catching up with me?

  He’d done a psych rotation. He so didn’t want to end up on the locked side of a ward. 302’ed. Incarcerated against his will. Because he was a threat to himself, or others.

  Stooping, he touched the crimson outline of her footprint with his finger. A droplet briefly clung to the tip before dripping onto his trousers. If not for her bloody footprints, he’d have no evidence of her reality. Staring at her tiny feet, he felt…loss.

  “I’m catching my patient’s mental illness.”

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  They stood on the porch waiting for him, despite the hour. Ram’s dark expression zeroed in as he exited the corn. His friend wasn’t pleased. Three-year-old Anthony was cocked on his hip and Ram’s foot was tapping.

  Anthony wasn’t crying. He stared up in awe at the dark skies, awaiting another thunderclap. Lightning flashed again, illuminating his pudgy, upturned face. Thunder growled and the skies opened, erupting in a deluge of sheeting rain. The droplets made an odd ticking sound on the corn leaves.

  “Everything alright?” Ram’s eyes shot behind him, looking for intruders.

  Truman hurried toward the porch, sliding in the newly forming mud.

  “You look terrible, your face is even more pasty than its usual Scottish shade.”

  “Thanks.” At least he’s still joking.

  He didn’t look Ram in the eye—they always revealed too much. He plopped down on the porch steps, slowly stripping off his dripping socks, trying hard to think.

  He followed Ram’s stare into the corn, unsure of how much to reveal.

  Ram was finishing his PH.D in abnormal child psychology. Although they were best friends, this revelation would test that friendship. He was going to have to endure more of Ram’s pleadings for additional testing. Testing his mind. He’d had enough tests, thanks.

  Ram’s analytical nature was reluctant to acknowledge anything he couldn’t see or hold in his hands, and his mind was unable to wrap itself around anything extraordinary.

  He, on the other hand, had seen badness be…the norm. So he reasoned, like the laws of physics, with so much bad, there must be good. He had no problem with faith or believing in the unbelievable.

  His mind replayed the girl’s image. Time travel? Or schizophrenia? Psychotic break?

  Ram was researching a myriad of existential topics for his final dissertation; a subject to which Truman had been dealing out doses of relentless heckling.

  Calling him, Dr. Strangelove. Dr. Spock. Dr. Who.

  Ram had also tried, without success, to make him a psychology lab guinea pig due to his synesthesia.

  “Snap out of it, True. You woke us at the crack of dawn! What did you see, man?”

  Ram’s coffee skin couldn’t hide the black circles under his eyes. He was spent.

  “I’m sleepy,” Anthony added as if hearing his thoughts.

  Wind blew sheets of rain onto the porch, wetting them. Truman retreated under the overhang, and Ram shifted the blanket to cover Anthony.

  The light altered almost imperceptibly. Dawn was about to break on the horizon. An entire night lost to chasing a phantom.

  His stomach clenched, replaying her long legs, her auburn hair.

  A vision you seem to be rather taken with. In lust with a hallucination. Brilliant.

  He cleared his throat. “Ah, another glorious day of dreary dark clouds. Typical Pennsylvania, reminds me of home. Let’s go in—I’m drenched.”

  He opened the door without meeting Ram’s eyes and walked toward the kitchen.

  Ram stomped in behind him. “If you think this conversation’s done…it’s not.”

  Truman crossed to the counter, Ram’s glare searing a hole in his back.

  He pulled out the coffee decanter, filling it under the tap. Sleep would be impossible now. He stifled a yawn and started it percolating. His eyelids drifted shut, and he drank in the aroma while he waited. Hoping it would wake him by osmosis.

  He heard Ram stomping up the steps, most likely laying Anthony back down.

  His eyes strayed between the pocket doors, which opened to his Occupational Therapy clinic. He stared at the file cabinets where charts and summaries awaited.

  He swallowed, pouring himself a cup of motivation.

  A mountain of papers lurked in the drawer; past medical histories for new patients, arriving in—he checked his watch…four hours or so.

  He sighed and took another slug.

  He knew he was supposedly a genius, but right now, his impulses felt all of sixteen.

  His mind screamed, over and over: Jump on the motorcycle. Ride for hours. Ditch the job.

  But, he couldn’t do that to Ram, not after he’d given him this opportunity. He’d put in a good word with the old doctor and convinced him to open the O.T. clinic as well.

  Ram entered, the kitchen chair squeaking against the linoleum as he pulled it out. He plopped down across from him, scrutinizing. His black eyes tightened. “Out with it. You’re hiding something. What did you see in there?”

  Truman stared back. He rolled his eyes, resigned. “You’re not allowed to think I’m a nutter; or give me any sort of differential diagnosis.” His fingers italicized the wo
rds.

  “Oh, I already know you’re a nutter. You don’t need my signature to confirm that.”

  He flashed a white smile as he got up to fish a mug out of the cupboard.

  Truman closed his eyes, bracing himself. “I thought I saw a woman in the corn. She was weeping and hysterical and she bolted when I called to her.”

  He opened them, monitoring Ram’s response.

  Ram’s black eyes widened. “Should we call the cops?”

  “Not unless you want me put away, leaving you and Sunny to carry on the insanity of this place alone.”

  “Why?”

  “She was dressed in some sort of old-fashioned shift, like something from Plymouth Plantation.”

  Ram’s eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.

  He added, “You know, one of those ‘history comes alive’, places? Or even like the Amish down the road? And when she reached the end of one of the bridges in the maze…she erm—” He dropped his eyes and scrubbed his face with both hands.

  “Yes?” Ram prompted.

  “She…dissolved. To nothing.” His gut twisted as Ram’s singular eyebrow rose.

  Thinking it was one thing, saying it out loud—quite another matter.

  “Well, maybe she was a lost Amish girl?”

  Ram recovered quickly, but not quick enough. He’d seen the brief flicker of panic twitch his mouth. He’s worried about my sanity, too.

  “I don’t think so. Like I said, she disappeared.” His gut performed another somersault.

  Ram’s face was both bemused and concerned. “Too bad I can’t write prescriptions.”

  * * *

  Salem

  Tituba trudged across the snow-covered fields, intent on arriving at the Parris homestead before her master’s return from the meeting house. Her husband, John Indian, kept time beside her.

  “You know I’d never hurt ta girls,” she whispered.

  “’Course not. Dark times have come to Salem.”

  Tituba plodded as quickly as the deep snow allowed, her breath issued forth in puffs of steam. Her dark eyes glanced over her shoulder. The setting sun proclaimed their time was almost up.

  Arriving in the kitchen, she sopped up the remainder of the snow from the floor as it trickled off her boots.

  “Betty, Abigail, we are home!”

  Her husband stepped in behind her, brandishing a few stocks of rye for her to examine.

  “What is that black on the heads?” he asked, pointing to the tops of the sheaves.

  “Do not think on it, we have more important things ta do. Goody Sibley says if we make the cake, it will block any maleficia working on ta girls.”

  Tituba left the kitchen and headed to their room. Standing in the doorway, she shoved a chamber pot into Abigail’s arms and directed, “Make your water.”

  Both Abigail and Betty eyed her anxiously.

  “You do it now. I might know a fix ta make you better.”

  Tituba returned a few moments later to collect her prize and headed back to the kitchen where John Indian awaited, stirring a mixture of rye bread on the table.

  Dipping in the spoon, a few drops of urine dangled on the end of it before plunging into the batter below. Tituba’s black hands worked the mixture into a cake, and she plopped it onto a grate, which would bake it in the fire’s hot ashes.

  Two frightened faces peeked around the kitchen door, watching her every move.

  Removing the cake, she called to the dog, which padded over, wagging its tail.

  “Here,” she said, and its jaws engulfed the entire cake, devouring it with a single snap.

  * * *

  Verity

  I slide closer till the hearth fire warms my back, hoping it will stop my shivering. The room feels too tight and close, as if Corwin’s accusation has sucked out the air.

  I try glaring back at the Constable, but my cowardly eyes keep stealing to Mr. Putnam, beseeching him.

  The tension in the Putnam house hums like the air before a storm. My whole body is shaking, as if I’ve been deboned.

  My nerves feel raw, exposed, like a lamb flayed for slaughter.

  I breathe deeply. “I tell you there is nothing wrong with John.”

  My eyes sweep the room from Ann and John Putnam to Constable Corwin, whose unrelenting questions for the past quarter hour have beaten me to exhaustion.

  Their faces remain stone. I try again.

  “Nothing more than usual. You know he cannot speak his mind like others. He never has, since his birth—this is nothing new. Nothing to do with the Man in Black.”

  Ann Putnam crosses the room in the space of a breath and shoves her face so close I smell her sweat.

  She spits, “Verity, it was at considerable cost we relieved Reverend Burroughs of you, John and Mercy after you lost your parents in the raids. We have treated you fairly. After all we have lived through with Anne Jr., I would’ve thought you and John would have the sense to stay out of mischief! You have been meeting with Tituba, have you?”

  “No, ma’am. I swear it!”

  I struggle to swallow the lump choking my throat.

  Anne’s shrill scream rents the house, awakening a chorus of wails from the younger Putnams upstairs.

  Accusations momentarily forgotten, all present fly out of the kitchen, up the stairs. I trail after them with Mercy and John hurrying behind me.

  Reaching Anne’s room, my stomach plummets to my boots.

  My hands cover my mouth.

  Her head wrenches and contorts, wrenches and contorts, cobra-like. Then stretches violently left, and holds.

  Her blue eyes roll back in their sockets, revealing the whites, and she seizes in this posture-rigid. Her lips recoil in a painful grimace, revealing the pink flesh of her gums.

  Her body flips from rigid to undulating; Anne’s limbs quake and flail like river-snakes against the coverlets. Her jaw snaps shut with a sickening pop. The pink tip of her tongue juts out between her gnashing teeth and she clamps down with a howl of pain.

  Blood-tinged spittle drips from the side of her slanted mouth and sweat pours from her forehead in tiny rivulets that darken her nightdress.

  I ball my dress in my hands and feel John’s frantic hand clutching the back of it.

  “I can see her! I can see her!” Anne screams.

  Her eyes stare past us.

  “Who, who do you see?” prompts Anne Sr.

  My mistress drops to her knees, clutching her daughter’s hand.

  Mercy cries, “S-she’s looking into the spectral world!”

  A gurgle bubbles in Anne’s throat, slowly cutting off. Her limbs collapse to the bed and her breath rattles in and out in quick bursts and her eyes rove wildly beneath her lids.

  Mercy grabs my hand and sobs into the back of it, her tears wetting my dry skin.

  Constable Corwin’s eyes find mine from across the room.

  “Verity, you are sentenced to an hour in the stocks, for humiliating Goody Churchill in public. As for John—we will be watching. You best keep him in line.”

  * * *

  Chapter 3

  The undersides of my legs prickle and sting as if the wasps from my sick mind have migrated, feasting on a new area of my body.

  The heels of my ankles are rubbed raw from the stocks. I wrench around trying to find someone, anyone.

  A sharp burning makes me cry out; my skin rips open and a tiny trickle of blood cuts through the grime on my leg.

  I taste the salt as my tears pass my lips, en route to my filthy neck.

  I am nothing, an empty shell.

  As if my real self abandoned this body and hides somewhere, awaiting the return of better days.

  The hornets rise in my head. My depression is a dark blanket, attached and hovering at a million different points, to their invisible buzzing voices. They drop it, and it covers me.

  The streets are clearing as people return to their homes to sup. Ingersoll’s ordinary is within my sight and the sounds of eating and drinking
fill the evening air.

  My sentence was one hour, but I’ve been in the stocks since sun-up. Angry tears well again and itch as they cut down my cheeks. My hands writhe, useless in the stocks, as I struggle to wipe them away.

  I hear footsteps approaching. I force my eyes up and my stomach roils. Goody Churchill approaches on the winding path in front of the stockade. I close my eyes on her delighted expression.

  I think of John and pray fervently for his safety.

  He depends on me to translate his thoughts, to decipher people’s facial expressions, which often hold no meaning for him. He needs me. I must get back.

  The footsteps crunch to a halt before me.

  My eyes squint a blurry slit, but a burning crack across my cheek opens them wide.

  Goody Churchill’s bulk casts her shadow over me, hands on hips. Her fat face is a rumpled sneer and her laugh is rife with the unholy mixture of jealousy and condescension.

  “Well, well, well. The tempest of your mouth finally landed you where you belong.”

  She steps closer, leaning down to whisper in my ear. Her breath is hot, laden with whiskey.

  I wrinkle my nose, lurching away, but the stocks hold me prisoner.

  Each word is velvety, smoothly-breathed. “I think you are a witch, just like that Tituba. I will see you and that fool brother of yours, hanged.” Her lips peel back in a triumphant grin to reveal a line of rotted teeth.

  She drags her finger beneath her chin as if an imaginary knife slits her throat.

  I know Goody Churchill had been in the stocks only last fortnight for falling asleep in church…while drunk.

  Something wet strikes the side of my head, snapping it backwards as the pain clangs inside my skull.

  My bottom slides off the bench, wrenching my legs in a painful twist as the stocks grind into my ankle’s open wound.

  The insects have control now. My mind hums, numb with their multitude. Swarming away with my sanity.

  My stream of tears feels distant, as if belonging to someone else.

  Silently, in my mind, I wail for my mother. This time, the pain won’t be contained.

  “M-mother, please, help me.” Sobbing drowns my words.

  Goody Churchill leers with pleasure; her cackle adds to the noise in my head.