A bright light fires in my dark mind-pushing back the swarm. It feels foreign; like a finger in my thoughts.
His green eyes. The man from the corn. Something inside me startles and wakes—long cold and dead.
I hear his voice, pleading with me to stop. His voice pushes back the dark.
“Ah, you’re daft.” She waves a dismissive hand and turns.
Realizing the fight has gone out of me, Goody Churchill retreats.
The footsteps recede with an occasional drunken hiccup. The image of him is fading. I want to reach out to him, to beg him stay.
Fear lets the cold trickle back into my heart. Surely, the corn is enchanted. And if I return to him—I shall hang. For wanting him.
I dare to open my eyes. A rotted corncob rolls on the ground beside me. My eyes flick across the fields.
The corn. The draw.
I laugh, and I hear the madness in it.
I shift my weight back and forth, trying to ease the searing pain on my legs.
The impossibility of my life presses on my chest, choking out my breath.
It is a vast void of repetition with no escape. Ever.
Rise. Chores. Eat. Chores. Teach John. Bed. Again.
With an occasional taunt or lashing thrown in, for good measure.
My vague memories of childhood are leaving me. My parents had not been wealthy, but they had been in love. And their love had sheltered us from hopelessness. They found joy in every task they undertook. I need those memories to stay. They are all I have.
“Please don’t forget me and leave me till morn,” I whisper. The thought of bears roaming in the nearby woods makes me sob harder.
More steps come into earshot. Squinting, I discern John’s lanky figure, steadily loping his way toward me. I hastily take deep breaths, trying to compose myself. I must be brave.
The footsteps halt in front of me and I open my eyes, knowing they’re bloodshot. My brother bestows a feeble smile, and I manage one in return.
My mother’s final words echo in my head, the ones I’d blocked out before. “Take care of one another. The two of you are all that remains of us.”
* * *
A screeching sound, which could only be one thing, met Truman’s ears. He bolted toward the hallway.
“The bus is here five minutes early! Run!” he screamed up the steps— simultaneously flinging open the front door and giving the bus driver a singular index finger of ‘wait’.
“Ram, we’re going to miss it! I’ll be late for patients and you for class!”
Ram skidded into the vestibule by the front door, brandishing five brown bag lunches and five coats. A stampede of footsteps thundered down the stairs.
Truman wrangled two blond boys into their coats. He bent, looking in their eyes. “Cade, you’ll do fine on your test, stop fretting. Connor, you’ll do fine with the music audition. Just take your time.”
Ram finished with another pack of unruly boys and the quintet sprinted down the bricked lane to the waiting bus, which honked as it pulled away.
Truman smiled at the Honda Civic pulling up in front of the turnaround. Sunshine opened the back door and hoisted a bag of toys over her shoulders.
“What’s she bought now? This clinic is already crawling with toys. I’m constantly stepping on them,” Truman said.
Ram rolled his eyes. “I’m late. You have to call the Mensa people back.”
Truman turned to look at him, his mind searching for recollection.
“The call, in the wee-hours of the morning? Remember?” Ram’s face was impatient as he donned his black pea coat.
“In all the fuss, I totally forgot about it. We’re going to catch it for that. We haven’t responded within the time frame.” Ram gave him a what-do-you-expect-me-to-do shrug, and took a step out the door.
“Never mind, I’ll handle it.”
Ram stepped off the porch and jogged toward his SUV, hopping over a stray ball. “Of course you will! That’s why I chose you! Responsible.”
He sighed. Yes, if you only knew I’m trying to rearrange my afternoon so I can search the corn and stalk a figment of my cross-wired brain.
“Oh, yeah. Responsible all right.”
Sunshine crossed the yard and tripped. Her colossal bag banged off the sign, which read, Johnstone/Usman Occupational Therapy Clinic, Specializing in Feeding and Sensory Integration Disorders.
It rocked a little and she swayed, and accidentally smacked it again.
“Don’t worry ’bout the sign—I can just buy a new one,” Truman yelled as Sunshine trudged across the yard.
She lumbered up the steps, the heavy bag over her shoulders slumping her posture. Her red lips pursed.
“I don’t want to hear it. If I’m bored with the toys, the kids will be too.”
Truman ignored her. “We have precisely five minutes till the first one arrives.”
She dropped the heavy bag to the ground and began extracting toys.
Striding into the clinic, he picked up a pile of charts and deposited them into Sunshine’s already-full arms.
“Those are yours. See you at lunch.”
He entered the clinic and strode to the desk; his own tottering pile taunted him.
“Right.”
The redhead kept filling up his mind, distracting him.
He leaned on the stack of papers, closing his eyes. Her face appeared, perfectly clear, perfectly distraught, as he’d left her.
He licked his lips. He wanted to…smooth that expression away. And never see it mar her face again.
His watch beeped, his eyes snapped open. “Crap. I am completely mental.”
Cracking open the chart, his eyes had time to scan the first few words, a diagnosis, when the clinic door opened followed by a child’s wailing.
“Timmy! Come on, Timmy! You’ve been here a million times, when is this going to stop?” The mother’s eyes held a desperate pleading expression.
Her fingers around the boy’s wrist slipped as he hung there, a rag-doll suspended by one arm. She wrestled the four-year-old to stand.
“You are going to rip out your feeding tube. Please, I can’t take another trip to the E.R. this week.”
Truman plastered on a smile. “How’s it going? Any new foods this week?”
Timmy quit his struggle, settling for lying face down on the floor, where he now rotated his arms in a frenzied rotary pattern, as if he were attempting a snow angel, without the snow.
The boy growled under his breath, voicing his displeasure.
“Well, he did manage a cheese puff the whole way through, chewed it and swallowed it, like you suggested. But when I tried the cracker…”
A violent retching sound exploded, clearly audible even from his facedown position on the floor.
“Tim…unbelievable. I can’t even mention the foods or he gags.” His mother sighed; her small exhale communicating a world of desperate exhaustion.
Underneath that hard exterior, Truman felt the waves of sorrow threatening to drown this brave woman; they were burnt orange. From Tim, a continuous, erratic pulse of amber fear emanated like a terrible Morse code.
“That’s ok. You’re continuing the bolus feedings through the tube? And I got the results of the swallowing study—he’s clear to do the thin liquids from a cup, no aspiration.”
When she looked confused, he added, “You know, no leaking into his lungs.”
“Good luck with that,” she choked. Her eyes glistened, despite being at this for months. She angrily pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. You know that.” He winked.
A shiver of his past hovered around his thoughts, trying to find a way in.
Her expression rattled around in his brain like Marley’s ghost, reminding him of his childhood.
When life is ghastly, everyday, anger may be all you have, the only way to stay alive.
Truman stooped, rolling the boy on his side. Lifting his shirt, his eyes traced the port for the ga
stro tube. The skin around it was healing.
“It’s all cleared up around the edges. You can wait outside, Judy. I’ll give you the status report when we’re done.” She gave a relieved nod, and shut the door.
Truman’s stared at the boy, who was unable to make eye contact. He would glance, look away.
Finally, he grasped the boy’s chin, holding it there, waiting him out.
“Tim. Tim? It’ll be fine, you know that.” Finally the boy met his gaze.
Taking out the lotion, he squirted some onto his hands, and firmly rubbed the ointment into the boy’s palms. Timmy gagged, and squirmed, pushing backwards. He signed the words, “All done.”
“No, sorry lad. Not done yet, if you can’t stand touching the food, you can’t expect to eat it. I won’t be there when you’re twenty to help you feed yourself. C’mon, you can do this. If we get one new food today, I have a prize for you, ok?”
The boy closed his eyes, a solitary tear trickling out the corner. He extended his other hand to Truman to rub and gagged again before Truman even touched him.
* * *
Chapter 4
Winter, 1692
The dog growls, his frothy lips retracting to reveal yellowed teeth.
“The girls are subject to maleficia! Now the dog is afflicted, see, he ate the cake!” Tituba cries out.
The black dog’s eyes stare sightlessly upward. He manages a wheezing, strangled bark, and my breath sucks in as I watch his limbs revolt. Just like Anne Jr.’s.
“Somebody help that poor creature!”
I’m standing in the snow, my teeth chattering from the cold.
I peer around the mistress of the house, Mrs. Parris, where she stands blocking the doorway. Her eyes, angry and afraid, chastise us.
“What are the pair of them doing here?” she rages.
I stammer. “W-We were sent by my mistress, Goody Putnam to—”
Mrs. Parris flies to the door, launching Tituba out of the way. Her face is livid red. “None of you should be here, this matter be private!”
Inside, the sound of heavy breathing clogs the air. We turn in unison toward it.
Betty and Abigail drop to the floor, twitching, seemingly in perfect mimicry to the dog’s suffering. Betty’s knee smacks the floor, and she doubles in half, expelling a violent eruption of sick down her shift. It pools about her, wetting the edges of her skirt. Its steam rises into the cool air.
Sobbing, she rasps, “Help me, Momma.”
The girl’s limbs quiver as if newly resurrected. They flutter uncontrollably, banging off her face as she attempts to cradle her head. “My head! My head be splitting!”
Abigail collapses beside her cousin. “I cannot breathe!” Her tiny hands circle her throat.
Hoarse chokes, punctuated by sobs, rack her chest with every inhalation.
Mrs. Parris is disintegrating. Her eyes are wild, like a trapped animal. “Oh-my-girls-oh-my-girls, Satan be gone from our house! Tituba fetch Reverend Parris!”
I vault past Tituba and drop to my knees beside Abigail, cradling her to my chest. Beside us, Mrs. Parris sops the sick off Betty’s soiled dress.
Her face…will haunt my dreams. Her fear is eating her alive, like the hornets devouring my mind.
“Tituba, go!”
Tituba breaks from of her frozen position on the floor, rushing out the door.
Out the corner of my eye, I see John step through the doorway. His eyes full of the dog quaking at his feet. Tears flood his cheeks as he bends, hand outstretched.
He’s drawn to animals, more than people. People hurt him, taunt him. Animals only love him.
“Do not touch it, boy! Are you mad? The creature is beyond our help now!”
Reverend Parris ploughs into the kitchen, Tituba and John Indian following in his wake.
His face is tinted purple, his hands clench at his sides, as if he restrains himself from throttling me. As if this is all my doing.
His finger stabs the air. “Twice now, in your presence, these afflictions occurred. Were you not just released from the stocks some hours ago for suspicion in Anne Putnam’s fit?”
A muscle twitches below his left eye.
I cringe at his hatred. Inside the hornets snicker, buzzing to life.
His eyes flick to the dog. “Devil-dog. It shall be hanged.” I stifle a sob as he launches forward, sweeping the animal into his arms.
It whimpers a low, baleful sound. The dog’s tongue lolls out, pink and frothy, from between its teeth.
“Oh sir, m-must you hang it?” John says. His hand claps over his mouth, astounded at his own forwardness.
John’s eyes plead. “I mean, he looks ill.”
“Ill? Don’t be naïve, boy. Dog’s may do a witch’s bidding, same as any man. This animal is condemned. It be a familiar.”
I hear Tituba whisper, “But it ate ta cake.” Her shoulders slump in defeat. She’s only trying to help.
Under my arm, Betty quivers again. Her eyes jiggle to and fro in their sockets, then glaze over. She stares off as a vacant expression settles over her face. Doubling over, she clutches her stomach and writhes. Her scream raises the hair on my neck and sours my blood. John’s hands fly over his sensitive ears.
“I see her—she’s pinching me!”
“Who?” Reverend and Mrs. Parris exclaim together.
“It is Tituba!” Her limp finger directs blame. “She’s in her spectral form!”
My head snaps to Tituba. She shakes her head. Her tortured eyes overflow with tears.
“No. I would never hurt ta girls.”
* * *
Truman checked the pocket-watch; a gift from his father the day he left Scotland. Guilt prickled his conscience; he needed to call him. Better yet, go and see him. The old man’s words replayed in his mind, “Don’t know what you expect to accomplish over there. Nuthin ya’ couldn’t do here.”
His eyes flicked to it again. 3:45 p.m.
He had fifteen minutes till the pediatric stampede.
Pulling the bit of paper from his pocket, he punched in the numbers on his cell and stepped out onto the porch.
Sunny passed him, and he held his finger to his lips to shush her.
Her red, manicured nails twiddled goodbye as she crossed the yard to her car. He watched her exit the estate and turn onto the main road. She stuck her tongue out before gunning it, spinning gravel.
He shook his head and smiled. She’s a trip.
The phone rang on and on. The corn rustled, and his eyes searched, sweeping across the center. The green undulated in linear trail; as if something was wandering, cutting across the rows.
A wave of color appeared, hovering over the corn tops, about a mile in.
Sweat immediately dampened his collar.
His heart throbbed, hard and fast. He looked around for help—but he was alone.
Intuition prickled.
His lips parted as it struck. The pain. It was exquisite, acute—a migraine of emotion, cutting him down.
A lightning bolt of suffering bored his subconscious—searing into his brain, into his own desires.
He stumbled, grasping for the porch railing.
The sensations tumbled in, rolling from the south end of the field, wave after wave of purple and black.
Is it her, the girl in white? Is she in danger?
The hand holding the phone dropped to his waist. He looked around madly, seeing nothing as the panic won.
A primal urge to protect her, to find her. To save her, consumed him.
A bell tolled.
Truman cocked his head, listening intently.
His breathing staggered.
Silence again. It was only once. The closest church is twenty miles away. He paced, vaguely aware of the phone ringing on speaker.
I am losing it. Medication, do I actually need medicated?
The phone rang endlessly.
“Why isn’t the bloody MENSA voicemail picking up?”
He scanned the corn as a new c
rest of emotion lambasted him. This one, a scarlet tide.
It ebbed and receded, ebbed and receded.
His stomach clenched and calmed in sync with its moving presence.
A low cadence weaved between the undulating colored waves; like an audiovisual fabric, assaulting him. The beat was threatening.
He bit down hard on his lip, tasting blood.
Suddenly, with a barely audible pop, the wave sucked backward, and was gone.
He blinked, confused.
A shocking blue sea had taken over the field. Another wave?
He squinted. Birds?
Bright, azure blue birds sat atop the corn. Hundreds of beady-black eyes stared, as if watching him.
His nostrils flared. “Go away.”
As if hearing, they erupted in a blue blanket across the sky.
The flock swerved as one body and swooped down once again, in a blue explosion to the southern-most part of the maze.
His heart skipped a beat.
He felt her, the girl, when they were near. And now…. Emptiness.
“I-I….”
She made him feel, with a singular look. Something he’d strategically avoided since childhood.
No attachment, no pain.
His empath-extra-sense had read her heart like an open book.
And worse—he had glimpsed what was possible.
Seeing her, experiencing her feelings, was like breathing for the very first time after a life-long emotional suffocation.
He ground his teeth together. “That is bloody ridiculous.”
But, the draw was real. Even now he could feel it—its intensity crippling; like being separated from the other half of your mind…your heart.
What’s wrong with me?
“You don’t even know if she’s real. Or something you created.”
The yearning was unbearable.
Ram stepped onto the porch. He started so hard the phone flipped from his hand. He juggled it, caught it and shoved it back against his ear. The low-drone of the endless ringing continued.
Ram looked at him; no, examined him. Obviously worried.
Truman searched the yard, but no car. The git must’ve used the back entrance.
Ram picked up as if their conversation had not been separated by eight hours of work.
“That would make sense, actually. If she’s a specter, there’s no way you will have to commit, right? It’s the perfect relationship for you. Even better than an Amish lass,” he said in a pathetic attempt at Truman’s accent. “You won’t have to convert.”
Where Bluebirds Fly (Synesthesia-Shift Series) Page 4
