In her little carrier under his shirt, she squawked and kicked and sucked, just like a normal baby. So he sang as he walked, bowing his arms out slightly as he pushed his cart down the ragged road through town.
And out of town.
And into that little diagonal trail into the woods that few people knew about. Marla the egg woman liked her privacy and didn’t advertise her address. But he and Marla had a history, didn’t they? Surely she would be willing to offer advice at the very least.
The egg woman was just exiting the coop when he arrived. She was covered in dust and feathers.
She set her basket of eggs gently on the ground and glared at the junk man. She curled her meaty hands into fists and took a long, slow breath in through her nose. He had been worried this might happen.
“Marla,” he said. “You are a sight for sore eyes.” He meant it, too. (He loved her, once, after all. And once he had a chance to make her happy, and to be made happy in return. But he loved the drink more. And she hated drunks. So it goes.)
“What do you want?” she said, as she brushed the chicken debris from her overalls and hair.
“Found something on the rubbish heap today,” he said. He was breathless. He was worried. He wanted to show her the child, to have her inspect and evaluate and love her. And yet, not. At the same time. What if she wanted to take the child from him? What then? He felt a sob bloom in the depths of his throat.
“I’m not interested.” She arched her back to crack the kinks out of her spine and tilted her head to the sky. As if just talking to the junk man required divine intervention. She picked up her basket and walked toward the front porch.
“Marla—” he began. The baby’s whimper increased to a full wail. The egg woman didn’t seem to notice.
“That’s enough with the familiarity, thanks. You know the rules.” It had been like this for years. Her voice was a brick wall with him. And he was a broken bottle. This is why they never spoke.
“The soldiers,” he insisted. “The ones that took the baby with the mark.”
“Don’t talk about that,” she said. “It’s too sad.”
The baby squawked again. Marla didn’t seem to notice.
“Please—um, Madame Egg Gatherer. I really and truly need your help. The baby—” The baby raised her voice to a wail. Still Marla did not notice.
“I will be setting the dogs out soon,” she said. “You would be wise to be gone.” She disappeared into the house. The junk man stood on the porch, his head muddled by confusion and drink, and further addled by the loudening wails of the hunger-panicked baby.
He sighed, ran his hand over his face, and shook his head to dislodge the clouds in his brain. He unbuttoned his coat and laid it on the ground. Untying the baby’s wrappings, he realized one reason for her growing discomfort.
“Poor little thing,” he said, “sitting around in your own poo. Unfortunately I know the feeling.” He wiped her off with the torn-up sheet and laid her on the coat. She spread out her hands and waved her fists, and kicked vigorously with untamped rage.
“Marla!” he called.
“Don’t call me that, Simon. I have been very clear.”
“What kind of milk do you give to a baby?”
“Why on earth do you want to know that?”
“Whatever the best kind is, I’d like to buy it. You sell it don’t you?”
“The dogs are coming out right now, Simon. I would be terribly sad if they ripped your face off, despite everything. But I will comfort myself in knowing that you brought it on yourself.” She opened the door and three large dogs came tumbling onto the porch, snarling and snapping.
The junk man rubbed his thumbs on the soles of the baby’s feet and moved her legs back and forth. She calmed a bit, hiccupped, and launched a spray of urine straight down onto his bended knee. She smiled.
“Atta girl,” the junk man said, utterly delighted.
The dogs stopped their snarling and tilted their heads. The largest of the three leaned down and sniffed the head of the baby. It wagged its tail and whined a bit.
“What on earth?” the egg woman said.
“I told you. It’s a baby. Your dogs know better than to attack an infant, thank god. I think I’ll keep her around.”
Marla slid out the screen door and skirted the sniffing dogs. She glared at the junk man hunched over the coat. “There is nothing on that coat, Simon,” she said.
“Close your eyes,” the junk man whispered. “Close your eyes and smell.”
Knees cracking, the egg woman folded her legs, sitting primly on her heels. She rested her elbows on her thighs and closed her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose.
“Oh!” she whispered.
“You see?” the junk man said.
“But . . .” She opened her eyes. “Oh!” A gasp, a shudder, a sigh. And she saw. He could tell. Hesitating slightly, she extended her right hand to the magic mark curling from the child’s navel. She let her fingers linger there for a moment, each breath shuddering in and out, in and out. She pulled away, pressed her hands to her mouth, and tears leaked into the crinkles around her eyes. “The poor little thing!”
The junk man gathered the child into the crook of his arm and looked imploringly at the egg woman. “Will you help us?”
The magic mark glittered and glowed. The child sucked madly on her fist.
“Please.” He placed his hand on Marla’s strong shoulder. He hung on for dear life. She didn’t bat his hand away.
She felt her heart start to swell.
19. Now.
After three days of profound, dreamless sleep, the Sparrow emerges from her nest. Her hair is matted and her mouth is raw. There are burn marks on her throat and tongue, and deep cracks in her lips.
She remembers the buzz.
She remembers the butterflies.
She remembers a burning web and an open door and the shiver in her bones telling her that she wasn’t alone anymore. Well. This should be interesting.
They are at the egg woman’s house—she knows it well. She is in the loft. It is a comfortable place—thick quilts and a hand-woven rug and wood walls and a view through the roof-peak window that is shaped like an eye. She knows that Marla is not her mother (her birth mother is the woman with the hollow eyes and the early gray hair, and the face marked by munitions grease and too much drinking and not enough sleep and too much sorrow for anyone to bear—the Sparrow knew her instantly, and saw her story etched on her face, as clear as any map. Her mother can’t see her. The Sparrow thinks this might be a blessing), but Marla has served as her mother—enough for as long as the girl can remember, and will continue to do so for now.
Many things will do for now.
(But not for much longer.)
Her butterfly clings to the far wall, its luminescent wings folded against one another, showing their dusty undersides. It is, she suspects, the only one that survived, and she does not know how long it will live, or whether it grieves its brethren, or whether it will stay with her at all.
She only knows what she hopes.
She sits up. She is, she realizes, naked under her sheets, and bathed. There is a bowl of water with lemons and mint floating on its surface and a dish with a small, clean sponge resting in its center. She runs her tongue over the injured inside of her mouth. It tastes slightly of lemons.
How long have I been sleeping, she wonders. She knows that she has been dead once, though she does not remember it. Did she die again? Is her borrowed time nearly gone? She suspects it may be, which is why she feels she must help people while she still breathes. As many as she can.
Which is to say, everyone.
There is a flowered dress draped on the chair, and a brush and a pitcher of water and a wash bowl on the dresser. There is a pair of soft shoes as well, but those she does not put on. She has never been one
for shoes, despite the egg woman’s best efforts. She slides over to the ladder and pads downstairs, her butterfly fluttering behind her.
Marla is nowhere to be found. The junk man sprawls his skinny limbs across the couch, his mouth wide open and snoring. The egg woman’s dogs have opted to remain in the house, and are sitting at attention, watching the junk man intently, their ears pricked up and their eyes narrowed to slits. As though he is a dangerous creature who might need to be subdued at any moment. Or torn to shreds.
“Papa,” the girl says, her voice a ragged husk of itself.
The dogs whine and thump their tails on the ground. They love the girl—always have. They are old dogs now, impossibly old, but still strong and bright-eyed and spry. It isn’t magic. Of course it isn’t. Magic is illegal. Still, whenever she is near them, she can feel her navel glow and heat, and she knows that when the time comes for her to leave town, the dogs will not likely live to see her return. She has accepted this. In a unified motion, all three dogs slide to their feet and stalk next to the girl, lowering their heads toward the junk man and showing their teeth. He wakes with a start. He stares blearily at the girl and blinks.
He does not smell of whiskey. He smells instead of pickles and mustard plaster and rosemary tea. Marla has laid down the law. Again. The Sparrow finds herself wondering how long it will last.
The junk man coughs. “You’re not dead.” There is a sob hiding in his voice. The Sparrow has one too. She knows the ferocity of his love for her, and she reciprocates it.
“No, Papa,” she says. “I am not dead. Not yet. Where’s Marla?”
“Town.” He sits, rests his spindly elbows on his bony knees. His fingers are long and delicate as willow twigs, though his knuckles are red and raw from the careless gnaw of his teeth. What is left of his teeth.
“I’m going to follow her. I need to tell her something.”
“She told me to tell you to stay put. She made me promise.” His eyes are red too. Bloodshot and red. And it is not from missing the drink. He has been weeping. He will weep again. The girl knows this for sure.
“She will forgive you. Anyway, there is something I need to take care of.”
“My bird, my bird. What do you think you’re doing?”
She smiles. He presses his hands to his heart. She crinkles her eyes to keep her tears at bay.
“The right thing, Papa. I only ever try to do the right thing.”
She kisses the top of his head and slips out of the room without another word, her butterfly clinging to her back. The dogs follow at her heels.
20. Then.
Despite the egg woman’s protestations, the junk man insisted on bringing the girl wherever he went. Their nation was formed in the shape of a dandelion gone to seed—each province made up of several small towns connected on one circular road, largely left to their own devices (most of the time), and connected to the capital by the main road, which was heavily guarded and maintained. There was no communication between provinces, and there was no travel to the capital except by express permission of the Minister. There were rumors that it wasn’t always so, but no one could say for sure. No one had actually read a history book, after all.
History was another banned subject.
Within the towns of their province, the junk man enjoyed total freedom of movement. He reported to no one, served no one, needed no one, and slept each night under the stars. With the addition of the baby into his life, only the last bit remained true.
“What if it rains?” Marla protested.
“Then it will rain. And we will be clean,” the junk man said, dandling the babe on his knee. He made a carrier that could attach to his back or his front or his hip, depending on what made the child happy. He also built a swing to hover over the cart and a shade to keep her from the cruelties of the sun.
“What if the soldiers come?”
“Let them come,” he said with more conviction than he actually felt. “They can’t see her anyway.” This had largely been true. While the dogs were aware of the child from the moment they encountered her, no one else seemed to notice that she was there. Both the junk man and the egg woman had tested this, taking the child to the market, to the well, to the monthly census, and to the required church services, and the results were the same: no one noticed the baby. Not even when she cried. She was invisible, inaudible, a cipher.
All’s the better, the junk man thought.
But Marla worried. For what purpose? she wondered. And for how long? At Marla’s insistence, the junk man agreed to have the girl stay with the egg woman for one week per month.
“Because someone has to teach her how to keep herself clean and whole,” Marla explained. “Someone will have to teach her to read and write and reason. How to mend a sock and make a jacket and keep the wind out and make stew. Someone will have to show her how to take care of her lady bits when they change and how to shoo the boys away when they come sniffing around. Someone will have to teach her how to protect herself.”
The idea that there might, some day, be any lady bits to manage or any wooing boys crossing his path was more than the junk man could bear, and he agreed to the situation.
(Besides, he reasoned, while he could get reasonably drunk with a baby in tow, he couldn’t get good and drunk, and the thought of saying farewell to his periodic blackouts was a devastating one. Now, he could limit his benders to the first week of the month.)
Marla, of course, had come to a similar conclusion, which is why she suggested the situation in the first place. She knew how much he loved the inside of a bottle.
But most of all, Marla thought of her own taken child (dead now, most likely. Worked to death. Pale lips. Milky eyes. Red flowers, red flowers, red, red, red) and how to protect the Sparrow. How to hide the curious curl in her navel. Hide the oddness of her birth. And her death. And her un-death. Hide everything. Marla worked twice as hard and sold what she could and bought fabric for the girl’s clothes and leather for her shoes and traveling gear, should they ever need to leave her beloved home at a run, and live out their lives in hiding.
(Where would they go? her heart asked her.)
(Marla told her heart to hush.)
And Marla hoped that the magic inside the girl—untapped, unknown, unnamed—would remain inside. That if she didn’t know about the magic, then she would not use the magic, and thus no laws would be broken and no unlicensed magic children would be repossessed by the heartless soldiers of the Minister’s personal guard. She would be raised as a regular child—hidden, yes, unconventional in terms of lifestyle, clearly, but fundamentally a regular child.
It was a good plan, Marla decided. And it would work. She decided that too.
But then, odd things started happening. Things the girl did not initiate or intend. It was as though the magic itself was leaking out.
The stick that became a snake.
The pebble that became a beetle.
The withered apple tree that, after a single touch, became heavy with apples the size of watermelons.
But surely those could be explained away. The snake was just a trick of the light. The beetle must have been there the whole time. And don’t fruit trees always surprise a person—coming back just when you think all is lost? They are the phoenixes of the plant world—though she couldn’t quite remember how she knew what a phoenix was. She certainly had never encountered one in a book.
Still, everything was explained. Rationalized. Forgotten.
For a while.
The Sparrow turned five on a Tuesday. It was the first week of the month, so Marla had sent the junk man packing (he had several bottles rattling around the cart in anticipation of his weeklong bender), and had brought the little girl with her to the chicken coop.
Sparrow, then as now, delighted in the populations of multicolored birds living in the chicken coop, but saved the majority of her love f
or a Blue Speckled by the name of Midge—a fat, fine princess of a chicken, with a tall, proud comb atop her head, and two deep red wattles adorning each side of her face like rubies. On the way to the coop that day, Sparrow jumped off the porch in a high, clean arc, going much higher and much more slowly than seemed possible (a trick of the light, Marla told herself). She landed daintily on the very tips of her toes.
“Well, look at you,” Marla said. “A ballerina.”
The word stopped her cold.
She had no idea what a ballerina was. She had never seen one, nor had she seen a picture of one, nor had she heard the word before in her life. And yet, there it was. In her mouth. In her memory. Ballerina. And not just the word, but the essence of the word as well. In her head was the swell of violins (what on earth are violins?), the toes like grace notes on a polished wood floor, the ribbon-wrapped ankles, the long, oiled hair tied back in a hard, round knot. She saw a feathered woman who was both princess and swan, a toy who would be king, a red bird with jeweled eyes (the downfall of tyrants, that bird, and oh! To have such a bird!). It was as clear as water, this meaning. As true as the breath in the lungs. Ballerina. Ballerina. Ballerina. The Sparrow looked at Marla and smiled.
“Yes,” the girl said. “A ballerina. See?” And she twirled on one toe, arms extended like wings.
The egg woman felt her heart sink—a heavy stone in a dark, murky pool.
Seeing things I got no right to see, knowing things I never heard of. She shook her head. What other tricks was that girl up to?
When they opened the chicken coop, they saw Midge lying on her side on the packed earth floor, her upper eye muddy and opaque, and gazing at nothing.
“No, no,” the child cried. She ran to the far side and skidded to her knees. She paused and held her hands outward as though blessing the bird, great tears streaking down her cheeks and falling onto the chicken’s beautiful feathers like rain. She scooped Midge into her arms.
Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories Page 18
