Where Bluebirds Fly (Synesthesia-Shift Series)

by Brynn Chapman

  He runs across the room, catching the boy up into his arms. The boy relents, letting Truman wrestle him into a chair.

  Truman holds up a toy, Thomas the Tank Engine, he calls it, in front of the boy’s face. His little eyes widen and sharpen. A moment prior, they were dim and unfocused—but now, they’re clear. It’s like watching the breeze blow away storm clouds.

  The change is astounding. I hold my breath.

  “P-please,” the boy says, concurrently rubbing his chest in a circle.

  Truman claps. He turns to me and translates his joy. “That movement on his chest is the sign for please as well! A double success! It’s very difficult for him to communicate, or control himself,” he says, indifferently pointing to the angry bite on his arm.

  Truman lays three numbers on the ground, placing the Thomas Engine on the third.

  On the number one, he places some stringing beads, and on the number two, some picture cards.

  “First this,” he says, pointing, “and then that.” He finishes by pointing to the train, an obvious reward for the boy’s enduring the first two tasks.

  The boy’s face screws up into a quivering ball of fury.

  A defiant, high-pitched screech rips through the air.

  I cover my ears and shrink back. It’s like taming wild animals.

  The boy bolts toward the swing, again.

  Truman picks up his walkie-talkie, still shadowing the boys every movement. “Sunshine, what day of the week is November 23rd?”

  “It’s a Saturday, Truman.” The words are out before I can stop them.

  His head whips toward me, mouth agape. He quickly faces the boy again, who is now scaling a ladder, intent on using the slide to take flight.

  Sunshine’s voice crackles back, “It’s a Saturday, Truman.”

  His eyes narrow. “Are you able to do that, then? Visualize the whole calendar?”

  I bite my lip and nod. Another secret, confessed. The months and years of the calendar flip through my head, a kaleidoscope of color.

  “It’s also a purple day.”

  I smile, but the sides of my mouth are trembling.

  I am terrified one of these revelations will make him turn on me.

  I want, more than anything else in the world, for this man to accept me. No, love me. Make me his own.

  In every way possible.

  But he smiles, and another bit of my soul heals.

  “I had a patient who could do that. A young man with Asperger’s syndrome.”

  “What is that?”

  “In a bit, let me get Adam on his way first.”

  A half hour passes quickly. Truman expertly coaxes the boy through his tasks, identifying pictures through pointing.

  He explains, “The pictures help him to communicate the thoughts trapped in his head.”

  The child manages a few words, here and there. Truman wrestles him through an odd whirlwind of activities—bouncing on a ball, and swinging the boy through the air while he whoops in delight.

  He calls the combined tasks a sensory diet, explaining the boy’s senses are immature.

  Finally, his mother appears and he tantrums—again.

  “Honestly Adam, first I can’t get you in here, and now I can’t get you out!”

  Truman’s smile is sage. “Yes, I call that the ‘I hate it, do it again’.

  Truman is quiet till he hears the outside door click shut.

  His eyes are immediately on me, all me.

  I’m amazed how calm he is, after an hour of screams. My nerves feel flayed and raw.

  “I believe Asperger’s is a way of being, not necessarily a disorder. Some disagree, and say it’s on the autism spectrum. It’s a genetic occurrence.”

  “That’s what you said Adam has?”

  “Yes. Well, he’s got P.D.D., but people with Asperger’s aren’t good with other people, and can be highly intelligent. I bet half of NASA has Aspergers.”

  “What’s NASA?”

  “Never mind. They also tend to have limited interests, but can talk your ear off about whatever excites them!”

  He laughs, again. It has a warm, musical sound, like a cello.

  “That sounds like John. He will speak about his paintings for hours on end, but can’t be bothered with people he doesn’t know.” Tears spring immediately on my lower lids.

  I miss him so desperately. Every thought of him punches a ragged, gaping hole in my chest.

  And the constant, nagging fear for his life has resurrected the hornets, giving them an endless buzzing symphony.

  Even Truman’s comforting presence barely keeps them at bay.

  I swallow. Truman is watching me. He is the most perceptive man I’ve ever met. He takes my hand in his.

  “He’s a magnificent artist, and that’s his only love, besides me. And he constantly misreads words and intentions, or what people’s faces say about the way they feel. He is doomed without me. I must get back to him.”

  I close my eyes. My hands are shaking.

  I smell Truman move closer, sliding his arm about my shoulders. “Go out and check the door as many times as you like, love. I’ll be in here, doing more of this, all day long. Come and get me if it’s open. I…” he hesitates. “Take the walkie-talkie with you.”

  I open my eyes. I know by the stretched tone of his voice, he’s about to say something important.

  His lips press together in a tight line. He thrusts the walkie-talkie into my hand.

  His strong, wiry arms hug me fiercely. He presses his forehead against the side of my head.

  The desperation seeps into his voice. “I don’t want to lose you. I want to come with you to save your brother.”

  I pull back, scrutinizing his expression. “What if you can’t get back through?”

  His eyes narrow and seem to take a deep breath of their own.

  “I’ve been alone most of my life. I wasn’t adopted till fourteen, and let’s just say I have attachment issues.” He swallows; his prominent Adam’s apple bobs. “I’m wholly attached to you-and I’ve only just met you. You know more about me than anyone alive. There is so much I want to know about you. I want to know everything. I want to be able to finish your sentences. Help you walk when you’re old. Home is in your heart, Verity; so that is wherever you are. Whether in my century, or yours.”

  My heart is a wild, fluttering bird. “You love me?”

  He smiles widely. “I do.”

  A rapturous joy bubbles forth. But danger lies beneath it.

  To dare to hope. But that’s all we need, really.

  The hornets quiet. Perhaps they die.

  I fling my arms around his neck. A singular tear slides down my cheek, dropping onto his chest.

  I feel dizzy. I want time to halt. To stay suspended in this perfect moment.

  “I feel the same.”

  Sunshine’s voice crackles into the clinic through the walkie-talkie. The button was depressed, where I’m leaning on it. She heard everything.

  “I hate to interrupt the 90210 episode, but your next patient is here.”

  * * *

  John’s hands’ shook. Mercifully, someone had provided a sketchbook, perhaps selfishly hoping he would draw and record the courtroom scene.

  This could not be further from his mind. He unearthed his favorite memories of comfort. A page-by-page account of his peaceful life with Verity, and the dog they’d had before their parent’s death. His fingers twitched, reliving the feel of his shiny, black fur.

  His fingers scrambled across the page, shading and contouring Verity’s face as she sat rocking by the blazing fire. The huge, black dog draped across her feet.

  The hot sting of tears came again, but he paid them no mind. They made a tapping sound on the parchment.

  He’d given up, giving them free reign. His feelings spun out, unrelenting, like a child’s top.

  The colors in his head grew with his exhaustion.

  He was so weary.

  Tired of fear, tired of pain
, and oh so tired of speaking.

  The slightest movements caused long streaks of iridescent lights to slash across his vision.

  Sleep was impossible in the coffin cell. His long legs jutted out the bars and he often woke to the scratching claws of rats.

  His days were plagued with lightning fast, dizzying colors from the lack of sleep. He only heard fractions of what was said to him.

  The world was too bright, people’s voices, too loud.

  The inside of his mind was preferable. It was becoming more and more difficult to translate the constant stream of pictures in his mind into words. Like he was slipping away.

  And emotions…trying to describe them left him standing at a bright green hill, words lodged half-way between his mind and his mouth. Like being trapped in your own head.

  “How do you plead, Mr. Corey?”

  Judge Hathorne, nicknamed the hanging judge, stared unflinchingly into Corey’s anguished face.

  John’s eyes jumped up and down the defendant’s queued the bench beside him. He was number six once again. Most likely, his trial would be delayed. He secretly felt it the hand of God at work, postponing his trial, till Verity returned to his rescue.

  Giles Corey stood mute once again. The old man shuffled his feet, but remained silent. His lips crammed together over his crooked black teeth.

  His friend, Thomas Gardner, spoke out of turn. “Giles, enter a plea, save your soul and confess! Please, man!”

  “That will be enough, Mr. Gardener. Unless you’d like to be escorted outside,” Hathorne scolded.

  A woman whispered beside him, “If he won’t enter a plea, they cannot take his land.”

  John’s head swiveled as Hathorne’s booming voice resumed.

  “You leave me no choice, Mr. Corey. Death by pressing.”

  The world seemed to spiral away. His next coherent thought was the sound of screams, forcing him out of his blissful oblivion.

  Martha Corey’s frantic wails echoed through the ordinary. One hand rose futilely as they ushered Giles out the door.

  His death march. For what?

  John stood, peering out the window. Quickly he turned his head and closed his eyes as his mind shuddered.

  Too late. The imprint of the scene burned indelibly on his memory.

  He forced himself to watch. His teeth chattered in his head.

  Mr. Corey lay face-up in the open pastureland across the street from the jail; while a morbid group of spectators looked on.

  John’s view was limited, and he was grateful.

  Constable Corwin placed flat boards across the older man’s chest. Other men heaped massive stones on top. John silently thanked God Mrs. Corey had no window near her.

  The pressing lasted for two days, long after they’d re-entered the witch dungeon.

  The sounds of the pressing echoed through the dungeon.

  After one full day of screaming, Mrs. Corey crumpled and lay silent. Motionless on the bottom of her cell.

  When the guards returned, he overheard them talking.

  Corey could’ve stopped the pressing with a word, a plea of guilty or no.

  Instead, the only words he whispered were, “More weight.”

  * * *

  Chapter 17

  Verity

  The afternoon sun is hot against my back. I glance down at the corn-maze map to be sure I’m on the correct path.

  The rows are well worn and mud inches its way up my boots, almost up to my laces.

  I tilt my head, listening for the music. It’s been absent for days now.

  The corn rustles and my heart leaps to my throat.

  I spin, listening, waiting.

  A bright flash of blue erupts as a flock of bluebirds alight from all around me. They followed me.

  I walk faster, eyes darting everywhere. I believe many oddities to live in the corn. Lurking and watching my progress.

  The corn is withering and I think of the voices, wandering somewhere, perhaps as close as the wind in my ear.

  I picture them; a funnel cloud of sounds, ripping up the rows. Gooseflesh sprints up my arms, raising my hairs.

  How can this place be in so many times at once? Is it the divine justice of a Creator? To somehow right the wrongs of history?

  A song begins a few rows over. Gooseflesh prickles my arms.

  I flinch, but keep walking forward, clutching the walkie-talkie tighter.

  It is the same serenade that emanates from the whirlwind. I shake my head. Nothing shall keep me from John.

  After searching for a quarter hour, the bridge appears.

  It is Wednesday, the blue day. The door has always opened on Tuesdays—Tuesdays are red. It is also the day that marks my parents’ deaths.

  I wonder if that is why my mind inked it indelible red?

  My stifled panic breaks loose, strangling my chest. Like long-buried lungs, taking their resurrection gasp.

  Being with Truman kept it at bay—without his calming presence, it smothers me, inching up my throat.

  And of course, my friends buzz to life.

  I spit on the ground, furious they’ve returned to haunt my ears.

  I’ve made it to the bridge. Behind me, I hear the whispers, the bluebirds and the rainbow-song serenade calling. Growing louder and louder with every step.

  I sprint up the bridge, hurling myself across the apex.

  For a brief second, whilst I’m air born, I’m bittersweet.

  I will see John.

  Then my boots strike the bridge. I look up to see the same, brooding Pennsylvania sky.

  “No! No!”

  I glower at the heavens.

  “Why is this happening? John needs me. You must open.”

  Tears seep out and rage flushes my face.

  “I know you hear me!” I bellow at the stalks. “You see all that happens in this field! Show yourselves, unless you be cowards.”

  I press my hands to my forehead.

  A cheerless tune saturates the corn, and with it, a deluge of images in my mind’s eye.

  My fingers rush to the gun Truman insisted I carry.

  The music drowns my senses as the doleful, orchestral piece unravels inside me. The music digs beneath my buried memories, popping them to the forefront.

  My mother and father lie on the floor of the cabin, their corpses newly pale, waxen.

  I choke, my fingers claw my face.

  They’ve been bled out, like animals.

  Each is face down in a hideous, crimson circle.

  My teeth chatter, rattling my skull.

  “It’s over. It’s all over now. Just a memory.”

  My hands cradle my head, as I try to keep the fragments of my skull, my soul, together.

  Righteous anger burns out the images.

  I square my shoulders, looking for my tormentor.

  This is not helping.

  Verity. It is my mother’s voice. Strong and earnest. You must live. Save your brother.

  The images rear again, a monster refusing to die.

  My brother, toddling in a circle, his eyes wide with fear; around him, cruel children taunt, “Idiot! Idiot!”

  I ball my dress in my shaking hands.

  My mother’s voice shouts, silencing the hornets. Love is their poison.

  John needs you. Be strong. Save him. You have not time to be frightened.

  I hear them, then. The whispers on the wind.

  My head swivels left and right. Bits of conversations swirl, popping in and out around me in a circle.

  Like several personalities are debating, examining me.

  She needs us.

  Why her?

  She is chosen.

  “I want to go home. My brother needs me.”

  The words grow louder, arguing in a heated whisper, till the air is clogged with raspy, verbal spider-webs.

  “He will die!” I plead. “Please.”

  My legs give way. Pain shoots through my knees as they strike the wooden bridge.

  Th
e whispers intensify, till I can hear and see the tiny funnel cloud generated by their arguments.

  It encircles a cornstalk, spiraling up and down, faster and faster, spitting out yellow kernels.

  They sink into the ground, disappearing.

  A twisted vine erupts from the dirt and climbs; two-four-six feet, in the space of a breath.

  It splinters with a thunderclap, in a myriad of directions, like woody capillaries. Its writhing tendrils scrawl to form words.

  My heart hammers. They are alive?

  The brown-briar spirals, weaving in and on itself. The length of it expands and contracts, as if breathing. It stretches and grows till a reedy tapestry spans ten feet across.

  It stops, and I wait in a loud silence.

  Even the bluebirds, perched on top of every stock, are silent.

  At first, I see nothing.

  I squint my eyes and cock my head as the patterns slowly appear.

  I walk off the bridge.

  Words appear at an alarming rate, the vines twisting, curling, and stretching to accommodate the script.

  “Face your fears.”

  My fears are mind-shattering. I do not wish to acknowledge them, let alone face them.

  I hold out my hand, feeling for the murmuring breeze, but it’s gone.

  The air turns tight and caustic. I choke on it, and cry out as I look up.

  A discolored field of wheat appears, its blackened heads bending in the breeze.

  A forest materializes in a blink, in the middle of the cornfield.

  Every branch is covered in them, like macabre, hanging decorations.

  They’re endless in number, as far as my eye can see. They materialize in and out with every breath of the breeze.

  Nooses swing from every limb.

  * * *

  John’s body shook.

  It began with a finger twitch. It traveled like a lightning-strike up his arm and he was its pawn.

  His boot banged rapid-fire off the wood floor.

  His thigh screamed; the contraction spread like an invisible vice, milking his legs, contorting his torso. His arms jerked straight like a scarecrow.

  The muscles seized in a collective-clench and he toppled from the bench. Like a petrified boy.

  The seizure changed its mind. His limbs rippled without purpose; his head crashed and bounced off the ordinary floor.