Devil and the Bluebird

by Jennifer Mason-Black

  Blue raised her notebook, but the librarian shook her head. “I insist.” So Blue moved the contents of her backpack to the larger one, and the librarian tied the sleeping bag onto the frame. Her old backpack she folded up and stashed in with her clothes.

  A scrawled “Thank you” felt too small a thing. Yesterday morning Blue had been crying in the drugstore bathroom, not sure she’d even make it out of town. Now, warm, clean, full, with a sleeping bag and some hope tucked away in the frame pack, she knew she’d make it. She owed the librarian something more.

  That thing you talked about, the signs people would draw? I’d write Kind-Hearted Woman on your mailbox. I think you paid your dad’s debt.

  The librarian looked at her. Something lit her face, like the rosy glow people got around a campfire, beautiful. Blue could hear her as well: the pluck of a fiddle string, a minor key, melancholy and lovely and lonely and hers.

  “You take care of yourself,” the librarian said. “Travel safe, and stop in if you ever come this way again.”

  She tried playing in the park again. There were fewer people than yesterday, though, and the breeze was stiffer, making it harder to keep her fingers working. After she’d run through most of the songs she knew, she’d only added another five dollars to her collection.

  She was examining the Band-Aids on her palms when a prickle on the back of her neck made her look up. A boy stood at the edge of the lawn for a minute or so, then headed over.

  “Can you play in fingerless gloves? You’re gonna freeze.”

  She shrugged. Her hands were mottled pink and white, depending on how cold any one spot was.

  “Don’t you talk?”

  She pointed at her throat, made a sad face before reaching for her notebook. It nearly slipped from her grasp. He was right: she needed some way to keep her hands warm.

  “Your throat is sad?” He’d come a few steps closer. Aside from a scattering of pimples, his cheeks were smooth, his voice a little high. He had to be younger than she, maybe even in junior high school.

  Bad laryngitis. Can’t talk.

  “Sucks for you. You sing, too?”

  Not like the rest of my family, she wanted to say. What difference did it make, though? It was gone.

  Yeah.

  He nodded, as if she were confirming things he knew. “Bet it’s all pretty stuff, right? You have that look. Longish hair, big eyes, you know. Pretty.”

  Her cheeks went warm despite the cold. He didn’t talk like a junior high kid. Anyway, Cass was the pretty one. Scratch that, the beautiful one. Blue’d try things on impulse and feel funny in the aftermath. She’d put on dark red lipstick, then wipe it all off half an hour later, throw a dress on, change five minutes before she had to leave for school.

  The boy kept watching her.

  Pretty music? Kind of, I guess.

  He looked her over a little more carefully. “You’d probably get more if you sang, but you might also get more guys being assholes, too. You know?”

  She gave him a dirty look.

  He held up his hands. “Not creeping on you. Promise. It’s easier, though, when you’re not all alone.”

  Two steps closer. He looked young—his face, at least—and he was short, but his eyes looked old, like he knew all about life and how things went. Not scary, just more than she expected.

  The ache in her feet had been growing, and she leaned forward and rubbed under the ankle of her boots. She needed to move on, in some direction, somehow.

  “Your boots giving you trouble?” His eyes were on them now, avid, hungry. She looked at the ragged pair of sneakers on his feet. No way. She was keeping her boots on while he was around.

  They’re fine.

  “’Cause I know a place where you might find some shoes. Maybe some gloves you can play in, too. It’s not far.”

  Lou had said to trust her gut. Her gut had said Jed was cool, and he had been. She’d been right about the librarian . . . and really wrong about Marcos.

  Only, had she been wrong about Marcos, or about how kids like him should act? She’d looked at his house and everything he had, and she’d assumed that he wouldn’t steal because he didn’t need to. Couldn’t the same have been said about her, the day she stole the candy bar?

  She needed gloves, and she needed shoes that didn’t hurt when she wasn’t traveling.

  How far is not far?

  “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  His name was Steve. He told her that, along with a general rundown of the town and the places to go and the places to avoid while they walked to the Exchange. That’s what he called it, the Exchange, as if of course she’d know what it meant.

  When she asked him how old he was, he gave her a funny look. “How old do you think?”

  14.

  “No way,” he said, a little pained. “I’m seventeen.”

  She raised an eyebrow. He stared at her. “I am. Really. How old are you?”

  17.

  They rounded a corner, and he cut across a church lawn and down a set of stairs to a door beneath the building. A laminated sign was tacked to the outside—DORA’S EXCHANGE—with hours penciled below. “Come on,” he said, holding the door for her.

  Inside, cardboard boxes were stacked along the walls. Each was labeled with index cards—MEN’S HATS, WOMEN’S HATS, every category of clothing imaginable. An older woman sat at a card table in the back, knitting with bright purple yarn. She nodded toward them. “Go ahead, take a look.”

  They weren’t the only ones in the room. A man with unwashed hair, his fingers flicking back and forth, mumbled to himself as he gazed into a box labeled LARGE SWEATERS. A man and a woman, clean and neat, whispered back and forth while matching children’s mittens in another box. They glanced at Blue and Steve, the woman blushing fiercely. She straightened up, as if to leave, but the man hissed something at her that made her stop.

  Steve pulled Blue by her sleeve over to a box of women’s gloves and mittens. She thought about the wad of bills in her pocket.

  $$?

  “Free. It’s all free. You’re lucky they’re open today. And that I found you,” he added with a grin.

  She peered into the box. It felt . . . wrong. She wasn’t like that man, the one who’d be standing on a street somewhere talking to himself later, full of twitches and tics. She had a home. She just wasn’t there right now.

  Then again, that couple, the man now speaking to the woman at the desk in a low voice about coats, they didn’t look like they belonged here, either. And she couldn’t go home, not until she’d found Cass. Maybe that made it okay to take some gloves.

  Steve didn’t struggle with the idea at all. He’d already burrowed into the box, coming up with a pair of black knit gloves. “They have all the fingers, but you could cut the tops off. It’ll take a while for them to unravel. Try.”

  Like shopping with Teena, almost. Could you be homesick for a person more than a place, even if that person wasn’t your friend anymore, never would be again?

  She slid her hands in. A faint smell of cigarette smoke clung to them, and the outsides were pilled, and she almost said no. Then she thought about the cost of a pair of new gloves and shrugged.

  In one corner were boxes of shoes. Mostly old people’s—somber men’s loafers, low-heeled women’s dress shoes. No sneakers. No snow boots, aside from children’s. She tried on a pair of brown leather men’s shoes. The tread was worn, and one of the laces had broken, and they were a bit large, but her feet fell silent within them.

  They stopped at the table once they were done and let the woman examine what they’d taken—the shoes, the gloves, a green wool crewneck sweater a size too big for Steve. “You know all about the kitchen, right? You come by at five, there’ll be hot food Monday through Thursday. Someone’s there to help folks find a place, too. The two of you, might be a good idea for you to come and see her.”

  “We gotta go. Thanks anyway.” Steve picked up his sweater and nudged Blue toward the door.

&nbs
p; Outside, Blue raised her hands questioningly. Steve shook his head. “Social worker. You don’t want to get mixed up with them. I don’t, at least. Shelters aren’t for me.”

  What about your family?

  He started walking. She hurried to catch up. Walking meant not talking, at least for her. Maybe that was his point.

  She thumped on the guitar case, hard. He turned around. “What?”

  Scribbling, almost breaking the tip.

  That’s it? You just walk off?

  Why even ask? She’d put her boots back on, and her feet insisted she shouldn’t stop, should keep going right on by him and on down the road.

  “It’s past noon. I need to look for lunch.” So he didn’t want to talk about his parents. It wasn’t like Blue was telling him about herself, either.

  Past noon. Lunchtime. In her pocket was a little more than eighty dollars and change. Her money—for food, for shelter, for a bus ticket.

  Money she would have spent last night had it not been for the librarian and helping people who needed it. People who didn’t come right out and ask for help, ones who waited with sad eyes while the money in your pocket felt heavier and heavier.

  I need lunch too. Know a cheap place?

  Forty-five minutes later, they sat in the park again, this time licking cream cheese off their fingers. Two bagels, one soda, two straws. Her boots off, tied to her pack, her feet stretched out in front of her in the unfamiliar shoes.

  Once finished, she looked over the gloves. A pair of scissors. Add that to the list of things to leave home with.

  “Give ’em to me.” Steve held out his hand. A jackknife appeared in his palm, fished out of his jacket pocket. Not a fancy one, no screwdrivers and tiny saws. A single blade in a silver case, PC monogrammed on the side. She pointed at the letters.

  Who’s that?

  He scowled. “No one. My cousin.” He sawed at the gloves until the fingers lay in his hand like shriveled black sausages. “Try now.”

  She put them on. The edges were ragged, the lengths uneven and thready, but her fingers were free. She opened the guitar case and pulled out the guitar.

  Steve sat back, his arm along the back of the bench, while she played a quick tune. When she finished, she propped the guitar between her knees and took out the notebook.

  You sing?

  “No way. I mean, I can’t even keep a tune. People would pay me to stop singing.”

  She grinned until it hurt. Laughing required noise she couldn’t make. Laughing noiselessly was just creepy.

  Have you tried making $ that way?

  She felt she could tell him things. She didn’t know him, he didn’t know her. Talking to him was like telling stories to an empty box. She wasn’t even breaking the rules of the woman in the red dress, because he didn’t know her name.

  “No.” He suddenly looked sad again, a hallway full of doors that all opened onto women crying, children with red eyes and blotchy faces. A whole house of grief, like Lynne’s after Mama had died.

  Sorry about before. Thought it was OK to ask . . .

  “It’s nothing. They just . . . didn’t get me. I’m almost eighteen, anyway. I can look after myself.” He took his hand away from the bench back. “You really do play well. Not the sort of stuff I expected.”

  She’d played him another Dry Gully song, “I Thought You Looked the Other Way.” It didn’t sound right, though, no matter how she tried. In her head, she could always hear Tish’s fiddle. Without it, without their voices, the guitar sounded a little lost, a little tired.

  Steve continued. “That bit at the end, whoa. That was something else. Not really my thing, but cool anyway.”

  What’s your thing?

  “Country,” he said without hesitation. “All the way. New stuff, not that old-timey kind.”

  She made a face. She couldn’t help herself. The old stuff, the stuff Mama had had on vinyl—sad, hard lives with just a taste of sweet thrown in—she liked it well enough. More, because it reminded her of curling up in Mama’s lap to listen, Mama singing along softly, her breath ruffling Blue’s hair. Or the real old stuff, banjos and fiddles with the smell of dirt floors mixed right in—she could appreciate it. Just not the new.

  “Better than most of what’s on the radio,” Steve said. “When I’m older, you know, when I have a job and money and stuff, I’m gonna go out line dancing every weekend.”

  You ever been?

  She untied her hiking boots from her pack and slipped the men’s shoes off her feet.

  “Nah. Didn’t have anyone to go with.” He kicked at a pebble on the ground.

  No gf?

  She regretted asking immediately. If he hated questions about his parents, he might about everything else, too.

  He didn’t run off, though, just ducked his head down a little. After a minute, he raised it and looked straight at her. “No boyfriend.”

  She blinked, slow, like a lizard caught out cold. Of course. He hadn’t been hitting on her before. He’d just been lonely.

  Steve waited, watching, still. What did he want her to say? She’d grown up climbing into bed with Mama and Tish in the morning while they were still half asleep. Maybe Steve had come from somewhere like Eliotville, though, where lesbian musicians were an oddity, and gay kids still suffered at the hands of their peers.

  She slipped one boot on, the ache coming quick as the leather hit her foot.

  You’ll meet someone. Any idea what bus tickets cost?

  “Where you trying to get to?” He looked relieved.

  Good question. Magic boots weren’t enough. She needed a magic map labeled “The Gully.” Where would Tish have headed coming east, where would Cass have chosen headed west?

  Chicago.

  “Chicago?” Steve stuck his hands in his pockets, gave a dead-on impression of a middle-aged man.

  Yeah. I think so.

  She finished tying her boots, tied the shoes onto the pack in their place.

  “It’s cheaper to hitch. If, you know, you’re trying to save money.”

  It makes me nervous.

  “We could go together.”

  Could they? As long as the woman in red didn’t change the rules, they had time.

  Sure, for a bit.

  Hurt showed in his face like mud swirling up in a stream. It would have been better if he swore at her. Cass swore. Teena swore, took it to a new art form. Blue did her best to keep up. The thing about swearing was that it made everything okay faster. You said the words, and they were like rocks, then spears, then swords; then at some point they reached an atomic level and the fight was over.

  This, though—this silent defenselessness—it was like hurting puppies.

  It’s that I’ve got this thing. It’s not safe to be near me. Not safe, like something bad might happen to you.

  Skepticism joined the hurt. “Are you on the run from the Mob or something?”

  Worse. You’re safe for a few days, as long as I don’t tell you my real name.

  “You haven’t told me any name yet.”

  She couldn’t help the burst of silent laughter. He was right, she hadn’t given a name, and he hadn’t asked.

  Call me Ishmael.

  He laughed, too. “Right. A girl named Ishmael? That’s totally believable.”

  Ok. Try Bess instead.

  “So what happens if I find out your real name, Bess.”

  It felt so good to say even a little bit, that she kept going.

  Not sure, but I think you might die . . . I made this deal, with—could she really say it?—the devil. To find my sister. She ran away 2 yrs ago + the devil said we’d play a game. These boots are supposed to tell me if I’m going in the right direction + I have to keep moving + she said I can’t tell people who I am or stay with them for more than 3 days or 3 wks.

  She wrote in a rush, not looking up from the paper once. Steve read over her shoulder, and when she finally stopped, the look on his face had changed again. Sort of sad, sort of uncomfortable.
>
  Because she was crazy. That’s what he was thinking. To him, it had to make sense. In health class once, the teacher had talked about homelessness and said mental illness was one of the risk factors. She’d never imagined that one day she’d be in a strange town trying to convince a runaway boy that her story about the devil wasn’t a sign of mental instability.

  I know it sounds crazy. It’s true, though. If I were crazy, wouldn’t I make less sense?

  “I guess. It’s just . . . Did you say ‘she’? The devil was a woman?”

  She nodded.

  “So, if you’re crazy, I’m not in danger. And if you’re not, we should be able to get as far as Chicago without her, like, I don’t know, eating my brains or something.”

  She’s a devil, not a zombie.

  Steve laughed. She wanted to join him, craved the way laughter could rise up from her belly, force its way out of her mouth, make her lips stretch and her eyes water. Instead, she just smiled.

  The minivan smelled of perfume. Synthetic, overbearing, nothing like the jasmine Teena had sometimes used, “just ’cause I’m a little flower.” This was hard-core old-lady perfume, mixed with peanut butter and jelly.

  They’d waited on a road running north, one the gas station guy had told Steve connected with Interstate 90. “That’s what you’re looking for if you’re going to Chicago. Take you right on up. Shouldn’t be more than a ten-hour drive, provided you don’t hit no weather.”

  They hadn’t been there more than ten minutes when a silver sedan cruised by. Older, nondescript, a man with a crew cut driving, one hand on the wheel, eyes on Blue. A motion with his free hand, a summons to the window. A ride, she guessed, though it could have been anything. She’d seen the car before, not just one like it but that very one, she was sure. The man, too . . . where?

  A honk from a following truck made the man speed past, but a chill lingered in Blue. When a minivan finally pulled over, twenty minutes later, Blue grabbed Steve’s hand and squeezed.

  “It’s got a fish sticker. Thank you, Father,” Steve whispered. She didn’t have a clue what he meant until he started talking to the middle-aged woman on the passenger side.