The Blackbird Season

by Kate Moretti

  She waited until three thirty, knowing she’d be late to Nate’s and wanting him to wait for her. She envisioned him there, checking his phone, sighing, looking out the window. Good. Let him wait.

  The last of the student cars pulled and she pushed open the door into the wet, gray afternoon, the air smelling like earthworms and dirt. The kind of day that reminded you of summer love, hot and thick.

  Bridget dumped everything in her trunk and climbed into the driver’s seat. On her way out, she cut through the student lot. She saw a lone red truck, parked along the edge. Bridget wound around the outside of the lot, slowed to a crawl next to it. There was a flash of movement inside the cab, in the driver’s seat, and a face close to the glass, black hair with thick bangs and red lips parted, eyes closed.

  Taylor.

  She moved her body, writhing like a snake, the boy inordinately tall, his blond hair grazing the fabric of the roof. His mouth was on her neck, his big hand inside her pink T-shirt, her tan skin shining as she bucked and pulsed against him. He turned his head, his eyes rolled back until all she could see was the whites through the window spotted with drying rain. Bridget hit the gas hard, before he could see her, and the car lurched, her heart in her throat.

  Andrew.

  • • •

  “You never answer your phone,” Bridget whined, the first thing she said, and she cringed. Nate shook his head.

  “For what? I can’t stand to talk to anyone.” Nate turned and walked away from her, and Bridget followed dutifully like a dog licking at his heels.

  “Nate, why am I doing more work for you than you are for you?” She hopped twice to keep up, his steps long and even toward the back of the house. The house shot straight back, like a railroad car: front door, living room, kitchen—no hallway. Ten long Nate-steps to the kitchen.

  She’d been in Tripp’s house before, but never without Tripp. It felt weird.

  “Where’s Tripp?” she asked after Nate didn’t answer her.

  “Work, until eight or something. I never know. That guy works a lot.”

  “Well, there aren’t a lot of cops.” Bridget turned her phone over in her hand, her palms slick.

  “There’s more crime than I thought.” Nate cleared his throat, his hands shoved into his pockets. “Drugs. Overdoses.”

  “Yeah,” Bridget said.

  “So what’d you want to show me?”

  He’d pulled inside himself, his eyes flatter than she’d ever seen them. She used to think they could all live in those eyes, surviving on the sparkle. He’d given them all life. For whatever time you spent with Nate, you escaped the confines of Mt. Oanoke, the drugs and the mill, the woods and the Stop & Shop. Now he looked like everyone else, a flatness to him that twisted her insides.

  “Nate,” Bridget said without knowing what she’d say next. He shook his head, don’t. She raised her phone and opened Periscope. Flicked her fingers across the screen, finding Andrew’s profile and Temp’s party; it was still there, what an idiot.

  She pressed play and moved the slider to twenty-seven minutes, the last three minutes of the party. She heard the heyyyyy baby, wake up. She swallowed, her tongue dry, tasting like acid, and passed the phone to Nate.

  He took it and watched it, expressionless. When it was done—she said yes, dog, and that deep, echoing laughter—she imagined Andrew’s hand on Lucia’s breast, the way he’d cupped Taylor’s breast in the car, his big, knuckled hand knobbed and rippled underneath the stretched knit of pink, and swallowed the sick to the back of her mouth.

  Something itched in the back of Bridget’s brain.

  Nate winced, but not enough. He handed it back without saying a word.

  “Well?” Bridget asked him finally.

  He shrugged, shoved his hand back into his jeans pocket. “Well what?”

  “This changes everything, Nate. Something bad is going on at school. Has been. Something that has nothing to do with you. You’re being set up for something.”

  He laughed then, a hollow, scary sound, deep from somewhere inside. “I know that. I’m the only one who believes it.”

  “Not anymore. I believe it. So does Tripp, maybe. Hard to tell. He can’t say much.”

  Nate laughed again, and Bridget wanted to slap his cheek. She imagined it, the red welt on the side of his face, his eyes open wide in shock.

  “Stop laughing, nothing about this is funny.”

  “Bridget, godddamn it, I get that.” He rubbed his jaw and moved past her to the fridge. Popped a beer on the edge of the counter, too comfortable. Too easily. “Alecia texted me last night. Drunk, maybe. Does she miss me?”

  He turned away then, his voice breaking. He’d gained weight, maybe ten pounds even in the last three weeks. His back was a soft dough with newly formed love handles.

  “I think so,” Bridget lied. She opened the fridge, pulled out a beer, and handed it to Nate to open it. She took a long gulp and the fizz felt cold and bubbly in her throat. Nate watched her.

  “You and Tripp, what’s up with that?” He leaned, casual, against the counter, his eyes moving around the kitchen.

  “Nothing.” She swallowed and repeated, “Nothing.”

  “He’s always had a thing for you. He’s not a wildcat anymore. I was surprised by that. Remember all his women? He always had women.” Nate tipped his head, took a long gulp. “God I was jealous of that guy. I’ve never even dreamed of that much action.”

  “He was jealous of you,” Bridget blurted. “With Alecia.”

  “Yeah. Alecia.” He let out a bitter ha and flicked the empty beer bottle into the recycling can. The glass broke.

  He drank it too fast.

  “She was so fun, remember? She loved our game nights. They were great.” He reached for the refrigerator and Bridget put her hand on his arm. His skin burned hot under her palm. “Anyway, he tell you that? That he was jealous?” He raised his eyebrows. “That’s a pretty cozy conversation. You should really think about it with him. I mean it—”

  “Nate, listen to me. I want to help you, but you can’t spend your whole days at the gym and your nights getting wasted.”

  “I don’t go to the gym, Bridget, look at me.” His palm slapped his belly, firm but bigger. His cheeks puffed out.

  “Where do you go?” Bridget asked.

  “Anywhere, sometimes nowhere at all. But mostly, anywhere. The woods. The lookout over the river. Sometimes the mill.” He swept his arm wide, knocking over a jarred vanilla musk candle.

  “What are you doing?” Bridget righted the candle. “When you go there, what do you do?”

  “What does anyone do? I think. I worry. Sometimes I bring a book.”

  Nate never read a book in his life, she was pretty sure. War books, maybe. Not a novel.

  “You read a book.” Bridget repeated it, slowly and dumbly. It seemed like a lie. “Nate, what about the video? Help me help you. I want to figure this out. Did you do something to Lucia?”

  “Do something?” He cocked his head to the side, his mouth twisting. “Like fuck her?”

  “Like kill her.” Bridget gnashed her teeth. “She’s missing, Nate. People think you did something to her. Did you?”

  “Do you think that, Bridge?” He came closer and his eyes went dead. Flat again.

  She stepped back. “No. But you are so different now. I want to help you. I want to reach you.”

  “You’re the only one, then.” He turned around and walked to the back door, his hands on his hips, watching the small, fenced-in backyard. Then, “Wanna hear something crazy? Jimmy’s back.”

  “Jimmy who?” Bridget shook her head, her mind racing through the options and not being able to pick out a Jimmy.

  “Lucia’s father. He left a few months ago. God, I heard he’s awful. Spent the day in the drunk tank. I knew him, years ago, when he worked at the mill. He was a bit crazy, but a good guy, I guess. Now . . . this town has changed a lot.”

  “Do you think he has something to do with Lucia being
missing?” Bridget asked, incredulous.

  “Maybe? What the hell do I know?” He lifted up a curtain and pushed it off to the side, craning to get a better look at something in the yard. He tapped his skull. “Guy’s not exactly right here.” He took a deep breath and then said, “I saw him, you know. In the woods. Why, do you think?”

  “Did you tell anyone?” Bridget asked.

  “No. Who would believe me? I barely believe me. Besides, Harper would just say why were you in the woods?”

  “Are you sure it was him? We should go to Harper. If you’re sure.” She eyed him like she didn’t quite believe him, either.

  Nate shrugged. “Listen. It’s a huge forest. Thousands of square miles. It’s not a crime to be in there, for anyone. I go to the police and I look like I’m desperate and guilty as hell, right?”

  Bridget shrugged. She honestly didn’t know. “Okay, Nate, but that video.” Bridget took a deep breath, her lungs puffing out her chest. “I think they raped her.”

  “They did.” He turned to face her and he never looked so sad. “I’ve seen it already.”

  “You knew about it?” Bridget couldn’t keep her voice even. But then it clicked, of course he did. He knew everything they did. He watched them, their lives his own personal play. She pushed her palm against her forehead to stop the spin. “Nate, help me help you, for God’s sake—”

  “Bridget, she told me about the party. She told me and I didn’t believe her.” He let out an indistinct sound, like a guttural groan. His fingers went to his lips, tracing the edge with his thumb. His eyes darting, his voice a whispered regret. “I told her that I didn’t believe her.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Lucia, April 18, 2015: Three days before the birds fell

  Party at Temp’s, the text said. Taylor.

  They would go days without talking and Taylor would come back, sickly sweet and sorry. Lucia didn’t care: only a few more months and then Taylor was gone. So was everyone else, scattering like leaves in the wind.

  Gonna be lit.

  She pocketed her phone, the screen cracked and broken. It only worked half the time; she’d gotten it from Walmart and paid for month-to-month data packages with her check from the Goodwill store. She could just pretend she never got it. No way was she going to Temp’s house. God, she hated that guy.

  She hated all of them. Except Taylor. And Andrew. She didn’t think about Andrew.

  Come over. Randy from the Goodwill. She wanted to go there less than Temp’s.

  Taylor had asked her once, her nose wrinkled, are you dating him? Fucking him?

  No, neither. Well, except that one time. He’d texted her all the time ever since. Even begged her one, just one more time, just the tip in.

  It was so fucking desperate. But sometimes it felt nice, to be that wanted.

  C’mon, hooker. You’re coming w/. Taylor again. Drinks for days.

  She hadn’t heard from Taylor in a week. Why now?

  C’mon, we’ll Xbox and chill. Randy.

  Oh God. Lucia rolled her eyes.

  She texted back to Taylor. You gotta get me.

  OMW. On my way.

  She muted her phone.

  • • •

  Taylor brought her clothes. A tank top and jeans, decent ones from Free People. Like a hundred dollars. Lucia changed in the bathroom, running her hands up and down the denim, softer than anything she’d ever felt. The top was thin, a flimsy black, but silky. So hot; Lucia had never worn anything so perfect.

  She brushed out her hair, wore it long, worked hair cream into her scalp until it flowed, clean and billowing down her back, her chest, dipping into the cleavage. She slid her fingertips along her scalp, above her neck over the healing scars. She hadn’t pulled in days. The pain was dull, like the tip of a safety scissor.

  She stripped and quickly put on her red bra, the one with the lace that Randy had bought her from the store. The nicest lingerie she owned, and it had been someone else’s first. There was a rip under the right tit, but who would see it besides Randy (he liked to slip his finger into it, called it easy access).

  You were no one if you were poor in this town. More accurately, you were just like everyone else who didn’t matter.

  Taylor gave her booties, gray and soft suede, a zipper up the side. She felt like goddamn Cinderella.

  “You look ridic,” Taylor said, and Lucia laughed in the mirror, her red mouth open. There was a crack there, from when Lenny punched it a year ago. She heard the glass break from her room and rushed out to see the blood all over his hand. A piece of the mirror had fallen out of the middle, weirdly in the shape of a jagged heart.

  When she laughed, the spot where the heart used to be fit perfectly into her mouth, and it looked like her face was cracking wide open.

  Maybe for the night, she could just be wide open.

  • • •

  It was so loud she couldn’t even think. Josh’s house was the biggest house she’d ever seen. She’d never been inside.

  Andrew handed Lucia and Taylor two cups, his arm around each of them, like they were his. She downed her juice; it tasted like fruit punch Kool-Aid, the kind Jimmy used to make them before everything went bad, when the mill was still open and Lenny was just a kid. They were all just kids. It would be so much fun to be like that again, filled with bright red Kool-Aid. She could feel it there in her blood, right away, pulsing like something alive, all that sugar and sweetness.

  She wanted to spin like that time with Taylor in the fountain.

  Andrew looked at her, not Taylor. His eyes up and down her face, her body. He smiled.

  She wrapped her hands around his arm.

  He kissed her neck.

  Taylor got them all more drinks, more juice in clear cups.

  “Selfie!” Taylor demanded, her face pushed up against Andrew’s mouth. Andrew pulled Lucia against him, his body unyielding like a stone wall. She could feel the bones in his shoulder under her fingertips. He was thin, but strong. His eyes sleepy.

  “My girls,” he said in her ear, his breath sweet, his skin moist, tangy, like cologne and sweat.

  Lucia pushed her face against Taylor’s, all their lips together, like a three-way kiss.

  They all laughed and Andrew leaned his body against hers.

  “When’d you get so hot?” he breathed.

  • • •

  Later, the rooms ran together, so many rooms. She was sure she’d never been in so many rooms in her life. She found the bathroom, a full mirror the size of a wall.

  She’d hardly ever looked in a mirror that didn’t have a crack in it.

  She looked. She stood there in the soft bathroom light (so many lights, why did they need pink lights? But God, the pink made her skin look nice) looking in the mirror in the red bra. What had happened to her shirt?

  She heard them call her, Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

  “Come upstairs! I’m upstairs!” she yelled out, running her nail along the tear in the red silk.

  Back in a bedroom, she didn’t know whose, but she assumed Josh. Trophies everywhere. So much gold, was it real?

  On the bed, she lay down. Her eyes so tired, the room spun around her.

  • • •

  Sometime later, Heyyyyyy baby. Wake up babbbbyyyyyy.

  Her stomach roiled, flipped with the sweetness.

  There were two Andrews, one Porter.

  “She’s wild like that.”

  Lucia smiled, she never wanted to be wild. To be the witch, the weird one with the white hair.

  I want to go home now. Can I go home now?

  “Say you want it, honey. Say yes.”

  Yes. I want to go home.

  “Say you want it, honey. Say yes.”

  “Yes.” Her voice wasn’t her voice, it was like the voice of an alien. Or a monster. She laughed then, spinning, spinning, spinning in her mind. The voice of a witch.

  • • •

  Even later, Taylor, somewhere Taylor
, Luuuuuuuluuuuuuuuuu. Luuuuuuuuuuuuluuuuuuuu!

  Andrew’s face, a bead of sweat there on the side of his nose. His bare skin beneath her hands. Her hips lifted up to his hips.

  A pain, sharp and cutting right into her center, a hot knife through butter.

  Like she was being split wide open.

  CHAPTER 34

  Nate, April 20, 2015: One day before the birds fell

  She came to Nate’s classroom on a day she hadn’t been in school. She looked like hell, her hair pulled low against the nape of her neck. He couldn’t lie, he looked out the window nervously when he saw her in the doorway. The parking lot was empty, it was too late in the day, almost six. Alecia would be waiting for him.

  He remembered her kiss. He didn’t want to do that again.

  She looked like she was falling apart. Her sweatshirt, the words Oanoke Paper emblazoned across her chest, the silkscreen flaking off, and he thought of the mica they used to collect in the stream behind his parents’ house. The black rock, dark as coal, peeling apart in paper-thin sheets, as light as air in his palm. Her jeans had dirt on the knees, like she’d been kneeling on them.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. No.” She scanned the doorway, hitching her backpack up on her shoulder. “I’m fine. I just . . . I just can’t stay here anymore. I need help. I have some money . . . not a lot.”

  “What’s the matter, what are you talking about? You’re talking crazy.” Nate stood, motioned to the office chair behind his desk, more comfortable than the plastic back chair he usually gave students. She sat and looked up at him. “You have to graduate, Lucia, you’ll regret it your whole life. You are weeks away. Nothing can be that bad.”

  She looked at him like he was crazy. “Yes it can. A lot of things can be that bad, you just don’t know about them.” She pushed her thumb into the fabric of his armrest, making a divot. “What do you know about things being bad? Your perfect wife? Your son?”

  “My son is autistic,” he said, and regretted it. It didn’t have the effect he’d hoped. Her face crumbled and her chin puckered like she was going to cry. “I’m sorry, I’m trying to find the right thing to say. What’s the matter, Lucia, just tell me.”