Burntown

by Jennifer McMahon

  Theo shakes her head. “Not really. People call her the Fire Girl. I just met her for the first time yesterday.”

  “So you’d never talked to her before yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “But you’d seen her around?”

  “Sure. We all did. She lives in the car. She’s been there since the school year started.”

  “Do you know where she came from? Anything about her at all?”

  Theo shakes her head.

  “And the young man who sometimes stayed with her? Did you ever meet him?”

  “Not technically. He chased us off yesterday. When we were talking to her.”

  “What were you talking to her about?”

  Theo’s face burns. “I…if you bring her a gift, she’ll show you her trick. She eats fire.”

  He scribbles something in his book.

  “So you brought her a gift?”

  “Yes. I mean I gave her some candy. And knitting needles and a little ball of yarn. It was all stupid really, but I was curious. I’d heard so many people talk about her, I wanted to meet her myself. I wanted to see the trick. And really, it was pretty cool. She had this ball of fire in her hand, then she just opened her mouth and popped it in…” She trails off lamely.

  “Can you describe the knitting needles and yarn?”

  The question is so unexpected, it takes Theo a second to regain her bearings. “Sure. Yeah. The yarn was dark purple, kettle-dyed—merino and alpaca. And the needles, they were pink aluminum. Size eight.”

  The detective nods. “Is there anything else you can tell me about the girl—anything you might have heard or seen?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And you’ve never heard her real name? She didn’t tell you?”

  “She didn’t say a word. People say she can’t talk…she’s mute or something. They say her throat’s all burned and scarred up from eating fire?” She’s babbling now, passing on gossip.

  “The last time you saw her was yesterday afternoon?” He looks right into her eyes, and she feels her throat tighten. She remembers seeing the Fire Girl and the boy last night, spooning. How peaceful they’d looked, his arm wrapped tight around her.

  “Yes,” she says, but she’s sure he knows she’s lying.

  “And what time would you say that was?” he asks.

  “Right after school. Three o’clock.”

  He nods. “I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station later. You can bring your parents.”

  “Am I…am I going to be arrested?” she asks. Her mother will be so disappointed, feel so guilty, think, If I’d only been home more, if I’d been a better mother.

  “Arrested?” He looks amused. “Of course not! I’ll just be asking you the same questions I asked now, only we’ll be taping it.”

  “I don’t understand,” Theo says.

  “It seems that one of your knitting needles was used in a crime.”

  “One of the knitting needles?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say any more.” He flips back to the previous page of his notebook. “The school has your address as Six Vine Street, Apartment 3B. And your phone number is 555-2949. Is that information correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ll be in touch soon to set up a time.”

  “Okay,” Theo says, feeling numb all over.

  “Thank you for your time,” the detective says. He turns his back on her, heads back toward the crowd in the vacant lot. She stands frozen for a moment, then goes up the steps and into school, because suddenly that seems like the safest place she knows.

  Necco

  At last, Necco reaches the spot where she and Mama used to bathe, right under the old bridge Mama jumped from.

  In the days after her mama’s death, Necco would visit this place, sit on the shore, gazing up at the Steel Bridge, picturing her mama there, perched on the edge like a great bird, and wonder why.

  Why, Mama? Why?

  And then, she’d replay their final moments together over and over, a loop of tape running through her brain, desperately trying to figure out what she could have done differently, how she might have saved her mother.

  Necco had gone out early that last morning collecting cans and bottles, and found a good haul. Necco was the one who made and held on to their money, who figured out when supplies needed replenishing, when it was time to get more cash, shoplift another jar of coffee or box of sugar. Necco was the one who made sure they had enough food to eat. Mama no longer concerned herself with trivial things like food and water and where the next meal might come from. Anytime Necco expressed concern over their situation, Mama would say, “The Great Mother will provide.” And Necco would secretly think, Great Mother, my ass, and go dumpster diving or on a shoplifting mission.

  Necco and her mother ate well on what other people threw away: day-old bagels, wilted vegetables, soups from dented cans, bruised fruit. They stocked the pantry in the Winter House with crushed boxes of tea, ripped bags of flour and sugar, and cereal that was past its expiration date. They filled water bottles from sinks in public bathrooms and drinking fountains.

  That last morning, Necco returned to the Winter House with over fifteen dollars from collecting bottles and cans and thought she’d treat Mama to a trip to her favorite diner, the Koffee Kup, where you could get a bottomless cup for one dollar. If they got one of the friendlier waitresses, they’d be a given a complimentary basket of rolls that came with little packets of jam and marmalade. Mama loved marmalade. They’d sit in a green vinyl booth, mix plenty of cream and sugar into their coffee, play the old-fashioned jukebox on the table. Mama knew all the songs, hummed along, remembering happier times.

  But when Necco got home, she found Mama packing up their things.

  “What’s going on?” Necco asked.

  “I thought we’d move down to the river today. Back to camp.” Mama was pinballing around, throwing things in boxes and bags with no system whatsoever.

  The Fire Eaters all scattered in the cold months, seeking refuge in drainage tunnels, abandoned buildings, anyplace out of the cold. Then once the snow melted and the trees began to get the faintest hint of green, they’d all meet back at the camp under the Blachly Bridge. But the trees were still bare and there were determined patches of snow in the shadowy places.

  “But isn’t it a little too early?” Necco asked. “The nights are still cold. And Miss Abigail and the others aren’t back yet.”

  “I think it would do us good to be out in the fresh air again,” Mama said. “We’ve been cooped up too long. The others will be back soon. And we can get things all tidied up for them.”

  The truth was, Necco missed the camaraderie of the other women, Miss Stella especially. Necco missed her walks with Miss Stella into the woods, fields, vacant lots, and down to marshy places along the river’s edge to hunt for wild edibles.

  “Why don’t you bring this first load over?” Mama said. “Get a good fire going and we’ll make fry bread. Get the big pot cleaned out, too, and start some baked beans. We’ll have a real homecoming celebration. The others will smell the food and be back at camp in no time.”

  Necco agreed, loading up with supplies, including dried beans, brown sugar, molasses, and canned tomatoes, so she could start cooking.

  “I’ll be there in a little while,” Mama promised.

  But she never came.

  Necco slips off the pack, removes her heavy leather boots, and eases herself, fully clothed, into the muddy river. The coldness startles her. The water is shallow here, and the bottom is sandy, easy on the feet, but you still have to watch for broken glass, rusted metal. She crouches down low, swishing herself around, rinsing the blood off her black pants and gray tunic—it was the only outfit she’d been comfortable in lately, as her body slowly grew out of her other clothes.

  When she was a kid, back before the Great Flood, Necco loved to swim. Now she can’t stand being in the water. She gets panicky if she’s in water that�
�s much above her knees. She’ll get into the river to rinse off, but she never lingers.

  She feels the icy current rippling around her, making her clothes clean. She reaches down and picks up fistfuls of sand and uses the grit to scrub away the stains. The brown water swirls, turns a murky red around her, and she thinks it’s a good thing there aren’t any sharks here. No fish at all. Not even a frog. The water’s too polluted. There’s an old paper mill upstream, and you can see the stinking, foamy, white sludge they dump right into the water.

  Necco decides she needs to get in and out quick, not just because of the icy cold but because whatever’s in this water can’t be good for the little tadpole inside her.

  She leans back her head to rinse her hair and looks up at the peeling green paint of the metal bridge frame, the enormous concrete supports holding it. She thinks of the lives going on up above, how the cars passing have no idea she’s down here, in the underworld of Ashford. Then, a thought passes through her, one so unsettling, she pushes it away nearly as soon as she registers it. What if her mother had been right? What if there really was a bad man, Snake Eyes, after them? What if that’s who got Hermes?

  No, she tells herself. Impossible. She isn’t going to let her thoughts turn crazy. She’s going to stick to facts.

  The tires of the cars above make a singing sound on the metal bridge each time they pass.

  The Singing Bridge, Mama called it, not just because of the noise the cars make but because of the birds. Pigeons roost there, hundreds of them, thousands maybe, cooing gently—not a song exactly, but more a noise of contentment. When Necco looks up and squints, sees all those pigeons moving along the supports, it almost seems as though the bridge itself is a living, breathing, cooing thing.

  Still, the metal supports underneath are slick with white pigeon shit. Guano, Mama called it. She had a way of making even shit seem exotic.

  “Mama,” Necco says, ears underwater, hearing only the rushing river. She knows it’s useless to talk to the dead—this is best left to the Fire Eaters, with their heads clouded by snuff—but finds comfort in it anyway. “I wish you could tell me what to do next.”

  She remembers the machine her father built, Edison’s Telephone to the Dead. She hasn’t allowed herself to think of it, but now, she lets the memories come back. Once, when she was ten or eleven, she snuck down to her daddy’s workshop in the middle of the night and turned it on, even though she wasn’t allowed in the workshop when Daddy wasn’t there and couldn’t imagine the trouble she’d get into if she were caught. But she felt drawn there. She’d asked questions about the machine, begged her father to turn it on for her, just once, so she could see how it worked. But he only shook his head, said no in a way that told her it was never going to happen.

  Could it really be possible? she had wondered. To talk to the dead?

  She even knew just who she wanted to talk to: her grandmother Elizabeth, whom she had never seen except for in pictures.

  Guided only by moonlight, she crept down to the workshop, stood in darkness until her eyes adjusted, then pulled back the tarp that covered the machine. She flipped the switches, watched the tubes glow, listened to static coming through the speaker. Then, she picked up the receiver that looked like an old-fashioned telephone in black-and-white movies, and spoke into it hesitantly. “Grandma? Elizabeth Sandeski? Are you there?”

  She wasn’t sure how this was supposed to work—did you just ask for a specific person?

  “It’s me, Eva. Miles’s daughter. You’ve never met me, but I think about you all the time. I wonder about you. Are you there, Grandma? Please say yes.” She whispered the words, embarrassed, even though she was alone.

  Sounds rippled through the crackling. A steady ticking, like the second hand of a clock. A pulsing, drumlike beat, then laughter. Like hundreds of people were laughing at her. Then, she heard her name.

  “Eva,” a woman said, her voice far off, echoey.

  Necco jerked back, every muscle in her body tight and thrumming. The old plastic receiver fell out of her hand. Heart hammering, she picked it back up, needing to use two hands because she was shaking so bad.

  “Yes! Is that you, Grandma?”

  “Yes,” fainter this time.

  “I’m sorry I never met you,” she blurted. “Sorry about the accident.”

  “No accident,” the voice said, then, there was something more, but it was too full of static to make out.

  Necco fiddled with the dials, tried to get the voice back.

  “Grandma!” she cried, crouching down, placing her ear against the speaker.

  “What is it you want?” a man’s voice asked, as crisp and clear as if there was an actual tiny man stuck inside the box. Maybe this was her grandfather, the jazz musician. Or her uncle Lloyd, maybe. She’d seen lots of pictures of him, even a few of him holding her. Uncle Lloyd had died when a fire broke out at his garage. Aunt Judith and their son, Edward, moved away and Necco never saw them again. She had no real memories of any of them as flesh-and-blood people; to her, they were only pictures in the photo albums on their living room shelves.

  “Who is this?” she asked.

  The voice came crawling through the tiny speaker like a snake, something foul and poisonous and full of danger: I’m whoever you want me to be.

  Then laughter; a horrible, keening laughter. Just one person at first, then a whole ghastly chorus of hysterics: high-pitched, twittering giggles; low, rumbling guffaws; hissing, sniggering wheezes. She was sure she could smell fetid breath coming from the speaker, feel the warmth and moisture of it on her cheek.

  She slapped the switches off, yanked the plug out of the wall, threw the tarp over the machine, and sprinted back to the house, feeling as if something was right behind her the whole way. Then she crawled into bed between her parents (although she was far too old to do such things), saying she’d had a terrible nightmare.

  “My poor duckling,” Mama said, pulling her close, kissing her head.

  Mama, she thinks again now, as she lies back in the rippling water. Mama, I need you. Her ears and face have gone numb from the cold, but she doesn’t lift her head until a figure appears on the shore, bathed in shadow and moving slow.

  “That you, Necco?” it calls.

  Necco stands upright in the waist-deep water, frightened at first, half-thinking she’s summoned a ghost. Like she did that night in Daddy’s workshop.

  I’m whoever you want me to be.

  But after Necco squints into the shadows, she smiles.

  “Miss Abigail,” she says, bowing her head, remembering her manners. She walks out of the river, water dripping from her tunic.

  Though it’s been months since she’s seen the old woman, Miss Abigail hasn’t changed. She’s dressed in her usual layers of bright and mismatched colors that bulge out like a petticoat and make her look much rounder than she actually is. Her long gray hair is decorated with colorful bits of rag tied in bows.

  Necco doesn’t visit the Fire Eaters’ camp much these days. Too many memories. Too painful. Though she thinks of them often—her second family—and misses them with a dull and steady ache.

  “What are you doing bathing with your clothes on, girl?” the old woman inquires.

  “They were dirty,” she explains as the wind hits her, makes her shiver.

  Abigail looks at her a long time, squinting through a filthy pair of half-moon glasses. “You in trouble again, Necco?”

  It’s ironic that someone with such poor vision can see so much.

  “Tell me,” Abigail urges.

  Necco isn’t sure where to begin. She closes her eyes, sees Hermes’s bloody face and the knitting needle. “My friend, someone, someone killed him.” She barely gets the words out, not wanting to break down in front of Miss Abigail. “And everyone thinks I did it. I was right next to him, I slept right through it somehow. I woke up and— Oh, Miss Abigail, there was so much blood! The Jujubes are looking for me right now. I’m not sure what to do. Where to go.” S
uddenly she’s crying. She wipes at her eyes with her soaking wet sleeve, tries to steady her breathing.

  Miss Abigail nods, squats down on her haunches, and looks up at the bridge above. She licks her lips, rubs at her nose. The skin underneath is stained red, permanently tattooed by the snuff.

  “I used to come here after your mama passed. I’d come and I’d sit and I’d wait for a sign. I thought if she could find a way to come back, even if just for an instant, it would happen here, in the place she lost her life. And then, maybe somehow, she could tell me.”

  “Tell you why she jumped?” Necco asks.

  Abigail looks at her a long time. “Child, your mother did not jump from that bridge.”

  “No,” Necco says flatly, but she feels the ground moving beneath her. “She did jump. That’s what the police said.”

  She’d gone crazy. Crazy from the snuff. Afraid of her own shadow.

  “It’s time you learn the truth. I thought that keeping it from you would protect you, but now I see I was wrong.”

  “Learn what?” Necco swallows hard. She wants to climb back into the water, lay her head down so that all she hears is the roaring water, not whatever Miss Abigail is about to tell her.

  Miss Abigail takes in a deep breath, looks back up at the bridge, at the birds gathered underneath. Suddenly, the entire flock swoops down, flies up the river—almost as though it were by Miss Abigail’s command. Or maybe they just don’t want to hear what she’s going to say.

  “Your mama was murdered. Dead before her body even hit the water.”

  “No,” Necco stammers, but doesn’t some part of her suspect it to be true? “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. And there’s something else I’m sure of. You’re not safe, Necco. You’re in terrible danger. You and that baby you’re carrying.”

  Necco’s hand flies to her belly. “How did you—”

  “I know plenty, girl. You know better than to question my powers, don’t you? To question the visions the snuff brings me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Necco tells her.

  “I told your friend about it. That your mother’s death was no suicide, that you were in danger. I tried to warn him, to tell him the best thing to do was to take you far away from here.”