by Orren Merton
I looked at her and sighed. She’d been so nice to me, so lively and accepting…but I just wasn’t used to anyone else going through my stuff.
“It’s okay,” I said. “But thanks though.”
“Okay…” she said, clearly deflated. “But can I come with you just in case?”
“Sure,” I relented.
That raised her mood a little.
I turned to Rabbi Norm. “I promise this won’t take long.”
“Take as much time as you need. Do you mind if I indulge my compulsive cleaning disorder and pick up the kitchen and living room a bit?”
I quickly looked around. Damn, I’d really turned this place into a pigsty, hadn’t I? I suddenly felt very embarrassed.
“Oh man, I’m so sorry, Rabbi, it hadn’t dawned on me what a mess I’d made of everything.”
“Please, don’t apologize,” he shook his head. “Not only is it understandable, but this is far from the worst I’ve seen. You have nothing to feel ashamed about. Besides, I’m the one with the disease here—I can’t help myself.”
“Okay, knock yourself out,” I said.
In the short hallway separating the three rooms, I opened a cabinet door, reached up to the top shelf, and stood on my toes so I could knock the empty suitcases down.
“I’d never realized how tall you were,” Rachel said.
“I’m just a little tall for a girl, I’m not really tall.” I flipped the suitcases out of the cupboard enough that they tipped downwards and I could grab them. When I put them on the floor I realized for the first time that Rachel was actually pretty short for an eleven-year-old girl. I had grown to about five-foot-eight, but I was already about five-foot-two or -three by eleven. I’m not sure if Rachel was even five feet yet. Maybe that’s why her eyes looked so big for her head.
“In here,” I said, opening the door to my bedroom. My bedroom was even messier than the living room. I didn’t have much furniture, just a tiny desk with my super-cheap laptop, a dresser, and my bed. The top of the dresser was filled with pictures of me and my mom. My bed was unmade, with bras, panties, and shorts strewn everywhere. I was a little embarrassed for Rachel to see it like that, but even more I just wanted to leave.
“Hey Rachel,” I turned to her. “I’m going to go to the closet and look through my tops, pants, and maybe a few other things I might want to bring. Do you still want to help?”
“I do,” Rachel said excitedly.
“Would you mind just grabbing all my underwear and shorts and packing them in your case?”
“Got it,” Rachel said. She cleared away some room at the foot of the bed to put the suitcase down, opened it, then started shoving in all the loose bras and panties on the bed.
The sliding door of my closet was open, so I just reached in and started taking out the stuff I tended to wear a lot: my purple pants and shorts, my black pants, shorts and tops, and my t-shirts. I folded them sort of neatly, so I had room for some non-clothing items as well.
Rachel had made fast work of clearing off my bed, so I was able to put the suitcase at the head of the bed on top of my pillow and start packing.
I had just about finished folding and packing everything up when Rachel, now sitting on the floor in front of the bottom drawer of the dresser, turned around. “Uhhh…did you want to bring this?” she asked, her voice sounding a little spooked.
I turned toward Rachel, wondering what she could have seen, and I gasped. Rachel was holding a long, sharp dagger, with a curved blade. The handle looked very ornate, with a round symbol where the handle met the blade of a scary-looking face with two horns.
“Where did you find that?” I nearly shouted. “I’ve never seen that before in my life!”
“I dunno…it was in the bottom of this drawer,” Rachel shrugged, more than a little defensively.
“I’m sorry Rachel, I didn’t mean to raise my voice. I’m just as surprised as you.”
“Is everything okay?” Rabbi Norm asked from the doorway.
“Yeah, but take a look—” I directed him to the dagger in Rachel’s hand. “That was sitting at the bottom of my bottom drawer, and I didn’t know it.”
Rabbi Norm gave me a slightly disbelieving raised eyebrow.
I swallowed and shuffled my feet a little. “I…uh…”
“She has a lot of bras and underwear, Dad. Girls do,” Rachel interrupted. “This is probably the old stuff she hadn’t gone through in forever.”
Rabbi Norm nodded. He seemed to be satisfied with the answer. I turned to Rachel to thank her for the save. Having seen what was lying on the bed, she understood: never leaving the condo, being miserable, I just wasn’t changing clothes unless I had to. Not even underwear.
“May I?” Rabbi Norm asked.
Rachel looked at me. I nodded, and she handed it to him.
Rabbi Norm turned it over and over in his hand, marveling over the blade. “Amazing…” he nearly whispered.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked him as I walked over to the doorway.
“I’ve never seen or held one of these before,” Rabbi Norm said. “But it’s possible that this—” he held the dagger closer to me, “is a representation of your father.”
I looked at the monstrous devil head and shivered. “Are you sure?”
“No,” Rabbi Norm shook his head. “But it’s possible, don’t you think?”
“Is there anything else in the drawer?” I asked Rachel.
Rachel carefully reached back into the drawer. She shuffled through a few layers of old bras and stockings. “Yeah,” she said, holding out a sealed envelope labeled “Alex: To Be Opened When You Are 18.” I took the dagger from the rabbi’s hand and the envelope from Rachel, then sat down on the corner of the bed. I opened the envelope and removed the letter inside.
“It’s from my mom,” I swallowed. “It’s not dated.”
“Would you like some privacy?” Rabbi Norm asked.
“Or you could read it out loud,” Rachel suggested.
I inhaled slowly. “You can stay, that’s cool. But I think I want to sit here and read it to myself first.”
“Okay,” Rachel nodded. “I’ll keep packing.”
Rabbi Norm switched sides of the door so that he couldn’t see over my shoulder. “I’ll continue cleaning after you’ve read it.”
I nodded and started reading the letter:
My Little Firebird:
Hopefully I have handed you the dagger and talked to you about this in person, probably with lots of hugging and crying. But if I die before you turn eighteen or I’m in treatment and can’t this letter will have to do.
First, the dagger. Before your father would agree to leave us alone, he insisted that you be given this dagger. I think he called it a “pseudo-blade.” He told me that if you ever slice into empty air with it, it has the power to open a door to his home. Also, he said that if you think hard enough, you can change it from a dagger into a pen, so you can carry it with you.
I told you that your father agreed to leave and never contact you, but there was more than that: he will never initiate contact with you, but I promised that you would be free to use the dagger to contact him, if you wished. He said that you couldn’t use the dagger until you physically matured. I told him that I’d give it to you but not until you turned eighteen.
If you’re reading this letter, I’m no longer there to advise you on this, but this is what I’d say: the decision of whether to meet your father is probably the most important decision you will ever make in your life. I have no idea about his universe or what his plans for you might be. Just thinking about it scares me more than anything has ever scared me. But I also don’t believe he wants to hurt you. He was always kind, and he did what I asked, he stayed away. So I have to believe he is capable of more than darkness.
I also want to say that I don’t hate him. I know that sounds strange. He lied to me, seduced me, and left me with a pregnancy that he warned me would exact a heavy toll on my body. But the f
act is that pregnancy resulted in the most precious thing in the world to me. My life was empty until you came along, little firebird. Every day with you was like an entire perfect lifetime. As shocked and ashamed as I was when he revealed himself to me, I can’t hate him for giving you to me. The only thing I’d change if I could is that I’d be there for you now.
Finally, please don’t hate yourself. What’s happening to me is not your fault. You’re bright and capable and can do anything you put your mind to. I want you to find a place for yourself that fills you with happiness and pride. No matter how lonely you ever feel, know that I love you with every fiber of my being. There is definitely more to existence than we understand, and even though I’m gone, I will always be with you, my little firebird.
You’re not a demon, you’re an angel.
All of my love forever and ever,
Mom.
I silently put down the letter as the tears streamed down my cheeks. I closed my eyes and thought God I miss you so much, Mom. I wish we could have talked about this. I need your advice more than ever. But even if she was always with me, I’d never hear her voice again.
“I love you too Mom,” I sobbed.
I looked up and saw that both Rabbi Norm and Rachel were staring at me with concern. I tried to smile and thank them for being there with me, but my chin quivered too much for me to smile and my thanks turned into blubbering. Rachel got up and grabbed a small packet of tissues on the desk and sat on the edge of the bed with me. She handed me the tissues and just held me. We sat in silence for a while, until my tears slowed and I could finally dab my eyes dry. It was really sweet. This girl was growing on me.
“Thanks, Rachel,” I sobbed.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly.
I sniffled and nodded. I reached my open hand over Rachel’s head toward Rabbi Norm. He gently placed the dagger in my hand. I retracted my arm, carefully to avoid hitting Rachel with my open hand. I held it and stared at the curved blade and the symbol on it. I thought about slicing the air right there in my bedroom to see what happened, but no way was I ready to deal with meeting my dad if it worked.
“So the letter says that I can turn this into a pen with my mind,” I said when my chest stopped heaving. “Let’s see if it works.”
I concentrated on the dagger and pictured it turning into a pen. After no more than a moment, I could feel it shrinking in my hand. My eyes went wide as the blade shrunk into the handle and became a fountain pen tip, and the handle shrunk and changed into the wooden body of a pen. It was a super-fancy looking wooden fountain pen, with the weird monster head symbol still on it. My dad’s symbol.
“It worked,” Rachel breathed, almost in shock.
“It did,” I raised my eyebrows in agreement and put the pen in my pocket.
I turned toward the rabbi. “Crazy, huh?”
“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in philosophy,” Rabbi Norm said as he raised his eyebrows and inhaled deeply.
I nodded, catching the reference.
“Here,” I said, holding out the letter toward the door. “You two can read it. It’s okay. It talks about the dagger, and Mom says some nice things to me. You were right, Rabbi.”
“About what?” he asked.
“Mom wants me to join the world.”
Rabbi Norm gave me a thin, warm smile filled with sympathy.
Rachel got off the bed and took the letter to Rabbi Norm. He leant over and held the letter low so that Rachel could read it too.
“Firebird?” Rachel asked.
“Yeah, that was my mom’s nickname for me. She called me her ‘little firebird’ since I was a kid, and of course after I flamed up for the first time, I understood why.”
“Is that a real bird?” Rachel asked.
“No,” the Rabbi explained. “In Eastern European folklore, the firebird is an extremely rare and beautiful majestic bird with flaming feathers. It could bring either blessings—or doom.”
5
After packing a few weeks’ worth of clothes, one picture of me and Mom from a couple of years ago, a small leather-bound book of my mom’s poetry, and my laptop, we returned to the rabbi’s house. That letter really spun my head around. It once again focused my thoughts on how much I missed my mom, and also had me thinking about my dad. I was always afraid of meeting him, and now it could happen, if I wanted it to…it felt too big to think about. After all that, it was nice to just hang out and play some video games with Rachel.
A few hours later, Rabbi Norm had fixed another amazing meal for us: salad, baked chicken, baby carrots, and rice. I swear, I’d never eaten this well in my life! All that was missing was ice cream, probably my favorite food in the whole world. But Rabbi Norm explained that he didn’t ever keep dairy products in his house so that he could keep his house kosher—so no ice cream. Or cheese. I loved cheese too. Who didn’t love cheese?
After dinner we had another one of our talks. Like the previous night, I ended up a crying mess. As ever, he showed nothing but compassion and patience, waiting for me to regain enough composure to continue talking, never rushing me. This time we talked a bit more about practical stuff—how was I going to pay bills without a job, did I want to go to college, and my current thoughts about meeting my dad.
We also talked about the condo. I still thought of it as my mom’s, but it really was mine now, and I felt bad just abandoning it for the rabbi’s house, even though I really was enjoying staying with him. He came up with a great idea: I would continue staying with the rabbi, but every day, once Rachel got back from school, she and I would spend a few hours cleaning up the condo together. It really did seem like the best of all worlds. I would be actively taking charge of the condo—of my life, really—and I wouldn’t have to be alone. Rachel was really excited about the idea too. Her eagerness to spend time with me was incredibly sweet.
That night was my first night in the guest room. It felt weird not being in my own bed, but it also felt really nice to know that there were other people around me, even though my door was closed. I slept better than I’d slept in a long time. I barely woke up in time to see Rabbi Norm and Rachel leave.
As Rabbi Norm ran out the door, he told me to help myself to any food in the house, to any books, his computer, whatever I wanted to do. Rachel gave me permission to use her PlayStation. And the rabbi said he’d be back with her at about three in the afternoon and would take us both to my mom’s—to my—condo, to get started.
I grabbed some toast and spread some strawberry preserves on it. After breakfast I started surfing around the Internet, looking for stories about demons walking Earth, seeing if I could find anything that looked like the face on my dagger. I mostly ended up on fantasy art and role-playing game sites, a few paranormal and fundamentalist Christian sites with some pretty far-out theories on various actors and senators being demons, and some sites for novels and short stories.
I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did end up getting sucked into following link after link, until before I knew it I heard Rabbi Norm unlocking the front door. I hadn’t even stopped to get myself something to eat for lunch!
Rabbi Norm laughed when I told him how consumed in my research I’d gotten. “I do that too,” he said. “I think we all do. How about on the way to your condo, I’ll drive through somewhere and buy both of you some afternoon snacks to tide you over until dinner tonight?”
“Ooh, that would be great!” Rachel practically leapt into his arms. “Can we drive through Jack in the Box? A chicken pita and a really huge iced tea sounds so good right now!”
“That does sound really nice, thanks!” I added.
“Okay, let’s go,” Rabbi Norm smiled, and the three of us left the house.
There was a Jack In The Box right on the way to my condo, so we picked up our food. Rabbi Norm didn’t have much time but he insisted on coming in with us. He helped us clear the little round table in the kitchen of empty cereal boxes and plates that he hadn’t gott
en to yesterday. Rachel and I sat down to eat as the rabbi turned to me with a compassionate expression.
“Are you going to be okay for a while here, Alex?” he asked.
I nodded as I chewed and swallowed. “Yeah. Thanks for asking.”
“I’ll make sure of it!” Rachel added, her words garbled by a mouthful of pita. I couldn’t help but smile.
“I’ll be back here in three hours or so, around seven-thirty.”
Rachel swallowed and quickly sucked down some iced tea. “Bye Dad! Love you!”
“Love you too, sweetheart,” Rabbi Norm said, and then left.
We continued inhaling our food, not talking much other than to mention how hungry we were. I told Rachel I wanted to start in my room—I didn’t tell her it was because I thought it would be the least emotionally draining for me. Rachel nodded, and as soon as we finished our food we took our iced teas into my bedroom.
Rachel suggested I go through my old clothes and throw out what I didn’t want anymore—to view this as starting over. She told me about cleaning out her own stuff after her mom died. I agreed, and we started going through all the clothes I didn’t pack, my books and journals, the pictures on my walls, everything.
Rachel was a fantastic helper. Really, she was doing most of the work. I was okay about sorting through my clothes, determining which I wanted to give to charity and which I wanted to keep. But when it came to the other stuff…I sort of sat on my bed, holding myself together while I’d reminisce about it to Rachel. And she’d stop what she was doing and listen, always being supportive. She never rushed me, even when I fell silent. She’d just wait for a while, or sit with me, and finally ask in a whisper if I wanted her to put it in the giveaway or the keeper pile.
When Rabbi Norm pulled up at seven-forty, we’d put away everything I was going to keep and had two heaping piles in the middle of the floor of my room: one of clothes to give away, the other of books to give away. We’d also filled a large trash bag of garbage and stuff that was too ripped up or threadbare to give away. The rabbi grabbed the trash bag and took it to the large metal trash bin that all three condos shared, and drove us home.
