The Blackbird Season

by Kate Moretti

  “The thing is, I didn’t say she was dead, Taylor,” said Bridget, trying to look bored. Taylor watched her keenly.

  “What?” She stopped, her eyes at the ceiling, staring at the glittering chandelier, her eyes spinning, blinking, her tongue licking the corner of her mouth. Every time a car passed, its headlights scattered a flickering strobe light around the hall.

  “A minute ago, you said Nate killed her. But I never said she was dead. I just said they found her. How’d you know she was killed by anyone?” Bridget asked again.

  “You said it. You did.” Her eyes flitted around, her mouth working, twitching.

  “What if I think you killed her?” Bridget whispered, her insides roiling like a careening car, the smoke and the sticky sweet smell of the house burning her eyes, the insides of her mouth, her nose.

  “You’re hilarious, Mrs. Peterson, really.” Her head lolled to the side. “You can think whatever you want. No one listens to you, you’re just the town sad sack.”

  Taylor snapped to attention then, stood up, unsteady, knees knocking and came toward her. Bridget backed up, the railing right against her back, all that blackness below, and wondered if this is how it was for Lucia, the inkiness about to swallow her.

  She grabbed the railing behind her, and in doing so let the phone go. She heard it crack on the floor below, a tinny, hollow sound. It didn’t matter, she had the important part. The world had it.

  It happened so fast. Before she could think, react, get out of the way, Taylor’s arms shot out. Bridget felt herself pinwheel, the wood of the railing against her back.

  Right after Taylor pushed her, as she tumbled over the railing, she wondered if Lucia had felt this way.

  If she’d felt, for just a second, like she was flying.

  • • •

  She tried to kill me!

  The voices were coming from inside her, screaming from her pelvis, her legs.

  Then, miss, I need you to please step outside.

  Then a scream. A slamming door. A siren. Then, finally, blessed silence.

  CHAPTER 40

  Lucia, Wednesday, May 13, 2015

  “Lulu! Lulu!”

  Lucia heard her before she saw her and wondered if Taylor would come all the way into the pulp room.

  Taylor was afraid of the mill. Even when they’d come here two years ago, maybe more, with Andrew and Porter. Before things got weird, harder, when they’d build a fire and throw stones at the windows, the sound of the break becoming some kind of contest, the loudest raining glass eliciting a rumbled cheer from the boys. Daring each other to go inside. Alone.

  Lucia was the only girl not afraid. She’d walked up to the pulper, the rotor shining in the middle, and wonder what it was like when it was bladed. They’d heard a story once about a man working there who’d fallen in, his body sliced to ribbons before they found him. Lucia had told Lenny about it and he’d laughed at her. It didn’t even have blades. It was just a mixer. The real danger was in the chemical they used. If you fell in, your face would slide clean off. Like The Joker.

  Lucia heard the yelp again, a dainty cry, and slid down into a far corner behind the cement wall of the machine. Taylor wouldn’t come all the way in.

  “Lulu!” Her voice, wobbling and wet, but close. Too close. “I know you’re here. I know you. God, you love this fucking place. I’m alone. Come out, okay? I won’t tell anyone. I just want to talk to you. The police are all up in our shit, looking for you. Can you hear me?” A scream, followed by a furious rustle, a stomping. Lucia covered her mouth with her hand. A spider. “Fucking spiders. Fine, you know what? Have it your way. I’ll just have to find you.”

  Footsteps away from the pulp room, into the roller room. She kicked a cardboard roll, the hollow phlump! of the tube against the stone wall.

  Lucia slid out along the side wall and climbed soundlessly through the front window. She edged along the outside of the building until she got around the corner and then ran for the dam, the weeds and grass up to her waist, licking at her bare arms.

  It was hot for May.

  Lucia didn’t have a plan. She didn’t always have a plan, but she usually had something in mind, the general outline of what to do next. This time, there was nothing but whiteness. A blank, beautiful whiteness like the foam of the dam flushing out her mind. She stood with her back against the widest oak, a bead of sweat zigzagging down her spine, and waited for the time to pass, for Taylor to get bored and leave.

  “Found you, hooker. Knew I would. God, you’re so predictable.” Taylor shoved at her shoulder, hard, and Lucia was knocked sideways, into the oak, her elbow scratching at the bark.

  “Jesus, Taylor, what the fuck are you doing out here?” Lucia rubbed her elbow and looked out at the water, the blackbirds looping around at the crest of the dam.

  “See, I should ask you the same thing. You know everyone is looking for you. You’re hiding. Why?”

  Lucia laughed then, this honk of a laugh that got swallowed by the dam, the loudness of it clouding around them until she could almost feel the spray on her face.

  Taylor continued, but stepped toward her, into her space, her mouth twisting, like she’d sucked a sourball. “What’s your next move, genius? What’s your plan? Just come waltzing back to Mt. Oanoke High like everything is A-OK?”

  “No. I don’t have a plan. Haven’t you ever just wanted to get the fuck away? Like get out?” Lucia pulled her hair down, her skin tingling where it met the root, and she felt the first prick of pain there, like a pin. She wound a small thread around her index finger, just ten hairs maybe, baby stuff, and pulled until it popped and her eyes watered.

  Taylor watched her and shook her head, closed her eyes. “Not like this, you freak. Do you know that people think Mr. Winters killed you? You know what else I heard? Mrs. Winters is all over it. She found that video, she asked Mr. Trevor about it. She’s about to be running her mouth around that Andrew killed you. And yet”—she swung her arm wide, her fingertips grazing weeds and sending a swarm of gnats up in a cyclone—“Here you are. This is what you wanted. Right?” She stepped forward again until Lucia stepped back. “Right?”

  She felt something inside her pop, like the lid off the seltzer that Lenny used to drink, a fizz and then a rush of bubbling. “I wanted to ruin his life. His happy, perfect little life with his happy, perfect little wife. He’s the only person who has ever understood me. He knew me. But he picked Andrew when he had to. I made him choose and he chose Andrew. He chose someone else.” Lucia looked out over the river; the blackbirds were back, looping and ducking, four of them now. “You wouldn’t get it, not really. You have your mom—”

  “My mom fucks anything that moves. So don’t go acting like she’s the greatest thing. You don’t see me out here, framing perfectly innocent people because my mom is a whore—”

  “Perfectly innocent? Taylor, what the hell is perfectly innocent about Nate Winters? He’s the reason.” Lucia felt her voice screech, her fingers seeking the corn silk threads at the back of her head, her face tilting up to the sky. “You’d never get it. He’s the reason. They all think he’s God. He’s like the God of Mt. Oanoke. Andrew, Porter, Josh. They’re all this club and no one else matters. And they all take turns building each other up, so high, so tall until they’re in this giant ivory tower in the sky and we’re all nothing. We’re all nothing.”

  “Are you high? For real, are you high?” Taylor stepped toward her again, her face white with bloodred lips and her eyes flashing.

  Something fell then, inside of her. A muscle or a bone, or maybe it was just whatever made people stand up straight, until suddenly, she couldn’t. She wanted to crawl down into the dirt, with the bugs and the sulfur water spray, her head lolling into her chest, her body feeling so heavy.

  “Are you even fucking listening to me? You’ve done what you set out to do. You ruined his life. His wife kicked him out. He lost his job. And you know what else? You ruined Andrew’s, too. He’ll lose that scho
larship, wanna bet? Winters was his ticket, his recommendation. So you’ll wreck everyone’s lives and I’ll just stay here, in Mt. Oanoke, forever. I guess taking care of you like I’ve done my whole life. All because why?”

  Lucia had never seen Taylor so angry. She was like a different person. “He didn’t believe me. About Andrew. None of you believe me. But he has it on video.”

  “He has you saying yes on the video. You hooked up with Andrew and Porter that night. Everyone was there. Listen, I could be pissed. I won’t be that girl. But you, you’re fucking ridiculous.”

  Fucking ridiculous, Lenny’s open slap across her cheek, sharp and quick.

  “He let me think I mattered to him. He was interested in what I thought, what I had to say. He got inside my head. Then he threw it all away like I was nothing. Because of Andrew.” Lucia pushed past Taylor, but Taylor reached out, her fingers like talons on Lucia’s arm.

  “You need to come back. Now. Tell everyone what you did. Have you been here the whole time?”

  Lucia shook her head. She’d been in the woods for a while, a hunting shack about a mile off Route Six, then she walked through trees, keeping the river to her left, and found her way down to the mill. She figured eventually someone would come looking, but she’d wagered on Mrs. Peterson, and Lucia knew she could outsmart her. She hadn’t figured on Taylor. She tried to remember Taylor spinning that day in the mall, that mossy water all up on her long, skinny calves, her mouth parted, glistening, and cotton-candy-glazed eyes up toward the ceiling, her hair flying around her like a cape. Just so happy. It’s the last time she remembered them being so happy together.

  “Come back with me, Lucia. I’ll stay with you.” Taylor’s voice was high, like a blade through air. Something flashed in her fingertips and she waggled it in front of Lucia’s face. The ring. The plasticky, shining heart ring, from that day in the mall. “Do you still love me? Do you trust me?”

  Lucia could envision Taylor, taking care of her, almost preening, rallying her troops, her mom. She could see it all happening. She’d stay at Taylor’s, they’d come up with a story.

  Lucia shook her head.

  The plan was to always go back. But now, the light was different, the air. The sky shone brighter. Something.

  “Are you with him now?” Lucia couldn’t look at her when she asked this and instead watched the dirt.

  “Who?” Taylor said, playing dumb.

  “Pfft. Who. You know who. The rapist.”

  “Stop. Saying. That.” Taylor’s voice changed, a rumble in her throat. “You fucked him and now you’re sorry. It is what it is. Doesn’t mean he’s yours forever.”

  “I don’t want him. I didn’t fuck him. I didn’t want it. I wanted to go home. You know that, you were there. Why?” Lucia finally did look up, Taylor’s hair flying, the sun behind her shining red through the black. She looked like an angel. “Why does no one believe me?”

  “You said yes.” Taylor shrugged, cracked her gum. Lucia got a whiff of Juicy Fruit.

  “I was barely conscious. I didn’t say. . . .” Lucia thought about it. She had watched the video. Just once. On her phone, her feet pulled up on the toilet, crouched in a stall in the janitor’s bathroom by the cafeteria. Out in the hall, Minnie, the lunch lady, had latched on to her shoulder. Why you cryin’ girl? You okay? Lucia hadn’t even known she was. “He broadcast it, T. Why is this okay with you?”

  Taylor laughed. “You know, you’ve been on me since we were kids. Even my mom feels sorry for you. How many dinners have you eaten at my house? Like all the dinners you’ve ever eaten in your whole life have been at my house. I tried to bring you with me, to the right crowd, the right friends, the right parties. You still couldn’t be normal. You’ve never just been normal. You never were grateful or thankful or anything. And now you’re just gonna do this? He’s the only one in this town that has anything going for him. And you’re just gonna, what? Ruin it? You know he’s got a baseball scholarship? Full ride. Nobody gets that shit anymore. Down in Texas, biggest baseball school of the country. Like maybe he’ll be a pro one day.”

  “What, you’ve got big dreams then? Like he’ll take you with him?” Lucia laughed. She couldn’t help it. This fucking town.

  “Why not? Maybe.” Taylor shrugged. “But not with you running your mouth all over. Nope. Not that way for sure.” Taylor grabbed Lucia’s arm then, her knuckles white, tight against her skin. Taylor got close, her breath candy sweet, her face red and shining, her mouth black, open. “Remember that night at the mill? You thought you were special. You thought he didn’t kiss everyone. That was years ago, we were practically kids. And now, you still think you’re special.”

  “I don’t think I’m special. No one thinks I’m special.” Lucia tried to pry Taylor’s fingers off her arm, but they held strong, like a vise.

  “All anyone ever talks about is you. Even Andrew—where’s the witch tonight?—like they want you around but they hate you, too. Even now, two years later, he’s so into you, of all people. You think you’re so smart with your philosophy and tarot cards, your artsy drawings. Your stupid druggie brother, your runaway dad. Everyone feels sorry for you. But you’re just a freak. And the only one who knows it is me.”

  Lucia wrenched her arm away and backed up through the clearing. Taylor smiled a little but her eyes went dead in a way Lucia had never seen, her cheeks fevered and hot, and suddenly Lucia was there, right at the edge, the embankment looming behind her like a black shadow. Taylor was still walking toward her, her mouth moving, her words crawling into Lucia, into her mouth and down into her stomach, roiling and rolling until she felt like she was going to throw up.

  Taylor stopped right in front of her, blinking, her face twitching. “Maybe everyone would just be happier if you were dead.”

  Her hands were on Lucia’s chest, a single, air-sucking jab, like a punch, and Lucia felt herself flying backward, into the air, the sprinkling water cold on her face, her arms, and for a split second, she felt easy, light.

  Free.

  Then she started to fall.

  CHAPTER 41

  Alecia, Friday, May 15, 2015

  “She’s awake.”

  Nate stood in the waiting room doorway, a swaggering stance she’d gotten used to over the years, but still somehow seemed to startle her when she saw it: thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, a lock of blond hair falling over his eyes. Like she’d married a boy.

  “And?” Alecia stood, her book falling to the floor, her breath caught in her throat.

  “Two broken legs. A few broken ribs. Miraculously, no concussion.”

  “Okay. I’ll be in.”

  Nate lingered a minute, some unspoken plea caught in his open mouth. Then he left her there.

  It was early Friday morning, but there was already a paper at the nurses’ station. Alecia touched it with her fingertip, twirling it around to read the headline.

  Student Charged in Death of Mt. Oanoke High School Senior

  Friday morning, a student at Mt. Oanoke High was charged with the murder of Lucia Hamm, 18, a senior at Mt. Oanoke high who has been missing since May 4, 2015.

  Nathan Winters, a teacher at Mt. Oanoke High, was previously suspected in Hamm’s disappearance. Winters has been cleared of any involvement in the missing persons case, but is still under investigation for his alleged relationship with Hamm. His job has not been reinstated at this time.

  Tad Bachman, the high school principal, had no comment on the case or the status of Winters’s teaching position at this time.

  “Yeah, I think he slept with that student. It’ll all be swept under the rug now,” said Rob Minnow, father to junior student Kelsey Minnow. “My daughter will be a senior next year, likely to have him as a teacher. People love him. I’ve never understood why. Baseball, I guess.”

  Alecia stopped reading. The early morning light, pink and orange, streaked through the windows, lighting up the waiting room like the inside of a Christmas bulb.

  What she belie
ved about Nate seemed just as naïve and rose colored.

  Did he sleep with a student? No.

  Was he attracted to his student? Maybe.

  Did he kill her? No.

  Anyone else would have kicked him to the curb.

  The Wednesday before, the day that ended up inadvertently acting as Nate’s alibi, thanks to a well-timed Chinese food receipt that he happened to sign for, she’d felt the first prick of hope. That day at Gabe’s doctor’s appointment, they told her they were taking him off one of his meds, the one that gave him stomach pains and diarrhea, the one she’d begged them to take him off of for months. Nate had come, for the first time in as long as she could remember. She’d texted him on a whim and he showed up, hesitantly in the waiting room, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets.

  He’d been patient.

  They exchanged a smile over Gabe’s head.

  It wasn’t everything. But it was something. The start of something or the end of something, it was always so hard to tell. Sometimes they looked the same.

  She watched Nate with Gabe and realized, with a sudden, sinking clarity, that he did do one thing well that she did not. The thing that Linda had urged her to do: accept. Nate had always been more accepting of Gabe in his weirdness, his messiness, his Gabeness. Nate’s impatience came from Alecia more than from his son: the money and energy Alecia insisted they spend trying to fix him. He didn’t care about the therapies, the herbal medicines, the diets, and the rituals that made up “living with Gabe.” Nate was happier to simply live with Gabe.

  Bridget’s room was filled with people: Nate and Tripp on one side, Petra on the other, a nurse taking her blood pressure, clicking off the beats with her acrylic nails then flashing big white teeth at them. “All good!”

  Both of Bridget’s legs were in giant black-and-blue Velcro air casts up to her thighs. Her hair was matted and damp, her face scrubbed clean and shining.

  Tripp, closest to the bed, had his hand resting beside Bridget’s. Alecia glanced over to Petra, feigning ignorance, and wondered if she noticed. She must. The room vibrated when they looked at each other.