Stork

by Wendy Delsol

  Penny opened her mouth as if to contradict me, but then snapped it shut and folded it into a look of defeat. “It’s hopeless. We’ve been friends too long. He doesn’t see me that way. He doesn’t see anybody that way.”

  “Maybe he needs to see you in a new light.” And maybe I could atone for being so judgmental.

  “What?”

  “I’ll come to your house at six tomorrow. Have your hair wet and your closet open. We’re gonna change things up a bit.”

  “We’re what?”

  “And tell Tina to be there, too. We’ll make it a two-fer.”

  “I don’t know. What’s the point?”

  “The point is you have pretty hair — people pay their stylists big bucks to get that color — and you have a cute figure, but if you want him to see you differently, if you want everyone to see you differently, then you have to give them something new to look at.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  I crossed my arms. “You didn’t answer my question. How long have you liked him?”

  “Forever.”

  “And how’s that working out for you?”

  She blew a big puff out of her cheeks. “Not so good.”

  “Hair wet. Closet open.” I walked away before she could argue any further.

  The rest of that school day was blissfully incident-free. Penny was warming to my Snow Queen costume ideas and looking forward to our appointment the next day — what she was calling Extreme Makeover: Minnesota Edition. Gotta love a girl with the sense of humor. And Jack completely ignored me at lunch, which was fine by me.

  After school, I walked to Afi’s fighting a headwind. The tails of my scarf whipped about my head, and leaves skidded across the downtown sidewalk. Some squawker of a Canada goose was blaring at me from across the street. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was trying to tell me something. Like, we’re all heading south — wanna catch a ride?

  I had the creepy sensation that someone was watching me when an old woman swept past on a bike, her sharp profile making my breath catch. Grim. She did not smile or wave or acknowledge me in any way. The Wicked Witch of the West’s theme song from The Wizard of Oz played as she pedaled away. It did. I heard it. It made me giggle. My cell phone rang.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “How’s my Kitty Kat?”

  “OK, I guess.”

  “It’s Friday. Got any big plans?”

  I didn’t know if hiding out in my bedroom from my mom and her okely-dokely boyfriend was big, but it sure was my plan. “Nah. Tomorrow, though, there’s some sort of bonfire going on, a school tradition. Some band’s gonna play.”

  My dad chuckled. “Pagan sacrifices? Viking reenactments? The Icelandic Sagas: The Rock Opera?”

  I went all rubbery. I had to stop for fear of bouncing off the sidewalk. If only he knew the half of it. “Something like that.” Had we been speaking in person, I might have told him more about the Asking Fire. He would have scoffed loud and long. I missed him. “Where are you?”

  “Still in Tokyo.”

  “How’s it going?”

  There was a long pause on the other end. “Not so good.”

  “What happened?”

  “The contract with the factory, it fell through, so looks like our financial backers are pulling out.”

  “Oh, no. After all your hard work.” For months my dad had been working on a start-up deal for a factory that would manufacture a newly patented design for small- and medium-size wind turbines. Last I had heard, they had a rental agreement to take over an abandoned plant in Long Beach.

  “This whole trip’s a waste,” he said. “Without a contract to prove we have a facility, the deal will fall through.”

  “It might still work out.” The goose had now crossed over to my side of the street. It was big and waddled toward me with authority, still squawking.

  “It would take a miracle at this point, honey.”

  “What are you going to do?” I worried about his funding falling through. It was a really big deal to him. Another goose circled above and then dropped in next to its buddy. The two of them walked behind me, jabbering away.

  “Try to buy us some more time. We’ve got one more meeting. Then we fly home.” I could hear the strain in my dad’s voice. “And start all over again.”

  “Will there be time to come see me?”

  The triangle formed by me and my parents was rubbed raw on all three sides. My dad hadn’t wanted my mom to move from California, though there was no way he could have fought for custody. Even without the affair as a blemish, he traveled too much and worked too many hours. My mom didn’t want to take on our home’s mortgage alone. But more than that, she wanted to go home, as in Minnesota. Wanted to spend more time with her widowed father. Wanted a fresh start.

  Dad was the quintessential Californian. He surfed, played beach volleyball, drove a convertible, and wore shorts and flip-flops year-round. My mom used to describe him as fun-loving, but that was before she knew the full extent of his fun. The rip in my gut flapped every time I dwelled on the whole thing. Still, I wanted desperately for the two of them to just find a way to deal. And I wanted my dad to visit. And I wanted my mom to be OK with that.

  “I’ll try.”

  “When?” I turned a corner; so did the birds, still tail-feathering me. What the hell? “And don’t say Thanksgiving, because that’s too long from now.” Plans were in place for me to visit him in November, but that was over two months away.

  “Soon as I can.”

  Which was post-divorce-speak for “no promises.” A truck rushed past me. It was the old faded green junker with SNJOSSON FARMS painted on the side of the cab. I couldn’t tell if it was Jack in the driver’s seat, though. A cap obscured the identity of the driver, as did the speed of the vehicle. Suddenly, a rush of wind came out of nowhere. It blew my hair into my eyes and mouth. I had to stop and turn my back to the squall. My dad must have heard the howl through the phone.

  “Was that what I think it was?”

  “Yes. Humans have no business living in this climate.”

  I could hear my dad laugh all the way across the ocean. He had a great laugh, the kind you hope for, and work for. All the more special, given the setback in his business deal. “Heck. Sounds like we should set up shop right there. Who needs a ridgeline when you’ve got Canada blowing down your neck?”

  “That’s a great i—” There was a bunch of static, and then the line went dead. I looked up to see Wade and Monique coming my way. They were ticker-tape parading their conjoined status. Honestly, a start-of-game Jenga tower didn’t touch at that many points. It was too late to cross the street. I pocketed the phone and wrapped my scarf around my face. As if it wasn’t bad enough with the two carping geese still following me and winds battering me from above, I had bad news headed straight for me.

  As they approached, forcing me off the sidewalk and onto a grassy strip, I found myself growing wary. Wade, I could see, had a vile twist to his mouth. They passed, and I momentarily locked eyes with Monique until something drew my attention upward. Around the crown of her head bounced little corking spools of air. I stopped suddenly, startling the geese. They honked angrily and flew off with great flaps of wings just a few feet above my head. I saw Wade duck his big head at the thunder of their takeoff.

  After they turned the corner, I stood in the same spot for many minutes, shivering. Monique — could it be? She had the same vibrating spirals as Jaelle. Monique — could it really be? Or was I going crazy?

  The wind howls as if wounded. I can’t see; leaves the size of beach towels encircle me, flapping in the gale and blocking my view. I look down. My feet are bare and cold. I inch forward, first on tiptoe and then the balls of my feet, anything to avoid full contact with the frozen ground. My dress, a long flowing gown of a gauzy red linen, is tattered and frayed and bunches at my ankles, twisting and wrapping itself until my gait becomes geisha-like. All the while the maelstrom of cold air continues, lifting my hair a
nd holding it aloft as if it were flotsam in a raging river.

  Obligation nags at me. Am I late? Am I lost? A test at school? Curfew broken? My mom worried? Something compels me. Someone compels me. Someone needs me. The child. Dear God, where is she? Still alone? Still unattended? The clearing. I must find the clearing. The insistent bleat of a newborn rises above the noise of the storm.

  Something taps my shoulder. The tendril of an intrepid vine snakes over my shoulder, and as I turn away from its creeping fingers, I lose my balance. Tumbling to the ground, I tear the bottom of my dress on a thorn the size of a rhinoceros horn. Still, the vine continues its crawl across my shoulder and over my stomach, pinning me to the cold, hard ground. I kick one leg free of my shroud, then the other, and claw desperately at the encroaching vine. Struggling to my knees, I pull myself upright by grasping a clump of berries, frozen hard and hoary. The berries then lift. Airborne, I cling to them, kicking my legs as I adjust to this woodland zipline, crashing through leaves and thick stalks. Needly pines tear gashes across my forearms. Pinecones rain down on me as if launched with slings. I am losing my hold on the swinging clump of berries; my hands are raw against their frozen surface, and my arms sore from the effort to remain aloft. I worry I’ll be thrown to the forest floor, when with a final crash through a wall of leaves I find my toes touching grass. Soft, warm grass. I let go and pull my aching arms to my sides. A delightful sound, cheerful and melodic, tickles my ear. The coo of a contented baby. I turn to see the infant once again on her perch of pillowy leaves and velvety petals. As before, she bats her fisted hands and kicks her feet at dandelion fluff as it floats above her. And as I stare at the cottony seeds, they transform before my eyes to snow, thick crystalline flakes that dust my shoulders and cling to my eyelashes.

  I spin in wonder at the sudden powdery shower and in doing so, scan the entire clearing. Again, the four stump-carved chairs are present. Jaelle, with her crackling fire-cape over her shoulders, still sits in a trancelike state. Within a moment or two, Monique walks into the clearing.

  “Monique,” I call. “Monique, can you hear me?” No reply.

  Monique walks to one of the seats, circles it contemplatively, and settles herself onto its coarse bench. She reaches behind the stump, lifts up a cottony substance, and pulls it over her shoulders. I think it’s gauze or wool of a dove-gray tint, but as I watch closely the cape shifts and moves. It’s a curl of smoky mist, a fog bank, a puff of cloud. Monique adjusts her airy cloak, folds her hands primly across her lap, turns her gaze to the newborn, and settles into a pleasant, sleeplike sentry of the beautiful child.

  I woke with a start, vivid images still playing on the backs of my eyelids like some old-fashioned movie reel. I bolted upright, swiveled to find a notebook, and began writing down every strange detail of the dream. Monique. It was too good to be true. I held the match that could light the fuse to the rocket that would send Monique’s perfect little world into orbit. To maternity and beyond. What a choice: one vessel who wanted it, another who deserved the complications. Though I couldn’t call a meeting until the other two chairs had been filled, in the meantime I had questions.

  I grabbed a granola bar, scribbled my mom a note, and headed into town. It was one of those mornings when a cup of Starbucks seemed as vital as oxygen, and possibly more so than my spare kidney. I parked in the alley behind Hulda’s store, careful to keep my car off Main Street. Afi would be opening up soon, and I didn’t want to provoke his curiosity. Approaching Hulda’s back door like a rookie thief, I looked left and then right, until I chided myself for such shifty behavior. Heck, I might as well shrug a ski mask over my face and carry a tire iron. On second thought, the large brass key Hulda had provided me was big enough and heavy enough to forgo any tool or weapon. I stopped, took a deep breath — muttering, “Hulda, here I come” — and slowly turned the key in the lock. The door opened with a long groaning creak, and I stepped a few feet into the dark back hallway. Hulda had instructed me to wait inside, but not to open the door to the office, which wasn’t an office anyway, though its faded lettering said so. I shuddered with cold. A weak morning light filtered through the transom above the back door, and I could see a very large brown spider busy at his loom. I heard something and took a few tentative steps toward the door just as Hulda poked her head out. She motioned for me to follow her back down the stairs.

  “You have need of me?” Hulda asked, gesturing for me to take my spot, none other than the robin-carved second chair.

  First of all, I was curious how she even knew I’d arrived. If Hulda had been in the basement, how could she possibly have heard me from that thick-walled and windowless room? Furthermore, it seemed an odd coincidence that she was even on the property, never mind down in the dungeon at the very moment I came calling. I hadn’t phoned ahead; we had no set appointment. What could she have been doing down there? It sure wasn’t my idea of a cozy nook.

  I settled into my chair. Was it my imagination, or had the robin carved into the wood of my backrest opened its wings?

  “Speak, child,” Hulda said with authority.

  “I’ve had two dreams.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’m always lost, and it’s always windy, like a category-four hurricane, and I’m in some crazy overgrown arctic jungle. And when I say overgrown, I don’t just mean thick. I mean Jack-and-the-Beanstalk-size plants. It’s cold and there’s always something tripping me up: legs ballooned to twice their size or a dress that knots itself around my ankles. And then I hear the baby crying, and I find her in a clearing. Around this grassy circle are four chairs — sort of rough and unmade. My friend Jaelle sits in one chair with what looks like a cloak of fire over her shoulders. And this girl I know from school, Monique, sits on another wearing one of mist. And they’re in some sort of hypnotic state staring at the baby.”

  Hulda watched me with eyes that flitted back and forth, darting from my own eyes to my hands, to my lap, and once, crazily enough, to my wedged loafers. I couldn’t help but be creeped out by the scrutiny. What was Hulda looking at? Or for?

  “The baby is a girl?” Hulda asked.

  “Yes. Definitely a girl.”

  “And the vessels, they are known to you?” Hulda stroked her chin.

  “Yes. Is that normal?”

  “Can happen. Yes. Tell me more about the baby.”

  “She’s crying, but then settles down once I get there. She’s on a bed of leaves and flower petals. And like I said, there’re huge plants growing all around. Oh, and she has a curled vine twisting around her with purple flowers that close when I approach. And she’s batting at dandelion fluff, which turns to snow.”

  Hulda supported her right arm with her left and tapped her forehead in concentration. “The child will be shy. The purple flowers are violets, shrinking violets.”

  “Oh.”

  “She will love nature and outdoors. That is why the plants are so large.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “The snow signifies that she will live in a cold climate.”

  What I wanted to say was “poor kid”; instead I said, “I think I’m starting to get how this works.”

  “And the square of chairs is the four earthly elements, two of which — fire and air — have arrived. It would seem that earth and water are expected.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You’re good.”

  “But there are aspects of this dream, Katla, that are unusual.” She dragged out the word unusual, as if the word itself weren’t freaky enough. “Is unusual to journey to the child, but to struggle or toil even more so.”

  Perfect. Because I wasn’t weirded out enough.

  “And is normally three vessels, not four,” Hulda continued. “Also troubling is location itself. Very strange, no?”

  She was asking me?

  “But the wind.” Hulda pulled her folded arms into her body. “This is a new symbol.” She rocked back and forth. “I must think on this wind. I must have forgotten something from
many years prior.”

  The room went eerily silent. Hulda was pensive, still bobbing back and forth as she moved her lips up and down, though emitting no sound. Two minutes passed, then three; I grew uncomfortable.

  “Is Saturday. You come back in two days,” Hulda said. “This thinking will take long time. You come back on Monday. Seven p.m. I’ll be waiting.”

  Hulda hurried me out as if there were a line of novice Storks all waiting their turn, or customers with purchases in hand and toes tapping impatiently. I looked confusedly around the empty fabric store and left with more questions than answers.

  I checked the address Penny had given me. It was on the same block as Afi, but the houses on this end were smaller; even the trees seemed less stately.

  Penny’s house was squat and pale yellow with gray shutters. A brightly colored bird-feeder was perched in a low tree, and a pot of orange mums sat next to a welcome mat. I rang the doorbell. Heavy steps approached, and the wooden door creaked open.

  “Fru Grimilla?” My mouth opened wide with wonder.

  “You know my amma?” Penny stood beside her grandmother.

  “What a good memory you have,” Fru Grimilla said. “It has been many years since your own amma hosted our ladies’ group.”

  Good save.

  “I remember,” I lied.

  “Was that before the two of you had your fight, Amma?” Penny asked.

  “It wasn’t so much a fight as a personality clash,” Grim replied sternly, without answering the question. Man, she was a black hole. Just being in her proximity made my shins splint. Kudos to my amma for avoiding the abyss.

  “I’m ready for you,” Penny said.

  Indeed, her hair was wet, as instructed, and I was glad for the diversion. “Let’s get started.” I turned to Grim. “Nice to see you again, Fru Grimilla.” I followed Penny out of the small entryway and past the living room and kitchen. The house was boxy by modern standards and the furniture was circa Leave It to Beaver, but everything was neat and the place smelled of cinnamon.