Nightbird

by Alice Hoffman

  That night my mother brought dinner to my room, homemade tomato soup and toast. There was a Pink peach berry pie, but I didn’t touch my dessert. I could tell that my mother had been crying, too. She said there was an unfortunate reason I couldn’t be in the play. We were not like other people in town. We knew well enough not to mock a witch. Then my mother whispered what a witch could do if you crossed her. She could enchant you, which is what she did to our family more than two hundred years ago. Because of this curse we were still paying the price. I could write my own plays and perform them up in the attic, making up stories, dressing in old clothes I’d found in a metal trunk. But I could not ridicule the Witch of Sidwell.

  My mother had a look in her eye I’d come to know. When she made a decision, there was no going back. I could beg and plead, but once her mind was made up that was that.

  We baked the Pink apple cupcakes to be served at the party after the play, but we did not attend the performance. Instead we sat on a park bench in the center of Sidwell as the dark fell across the sky. We could hear the bell above Town Hall as it chimed six. We could hear an echo as the audience applauded for the new witch once the play had begun.

  I think that evening was the beginning of my feeling lonely, a feeling I carried folded up, a secret I could never tell. From then on, I didn’t cry when I was disappointed. I just stored up my hurts, as if they were a tower made of fallen stars, invisible to most people, but brightly burning inside of me.

  It was late spring when the new people moved into Mourning Dove Cottage, the time of year when the orchard was abloom with a pink haze. For months there had been carpenters hammering and sawing as they worked away on the cottage, fixing shingles onto the roof, removing broken glass, and restoring the tumbledown porch. Some of the Gossip Group had been employed by the new owners of Mourning Dove, and they loved to tell people at the General Store how much they were charging the newcomers for their renovations. They were city people, outsiders, and so they paid top dollar for their rebuilt roof and a non-sagging porch. I thought this wasn’t very neighborly, and I could tell that Mr. Stern felt the same way.

  “If you’re honest with someone he’ll be honest with you,” he told the men who gathered near his checkout counter, but I think I was the only one paying attention.

  In this season I always collect flowering branches, enough to fill every one of our vases so the scent of apple blossoms will filter through our house, from the kitchen all the way to the attic. I spend hours curled up in my favorite tree, an old, twisted one that is thought to be the original apple tree planted in Sidwell. It’s knobby, with velvety black bark, but I think the branches are like arms. I read books and do my homework up here. I take naps under a bower of leaves. In my dreams men and women can fly and birds live in houses and sleep in beds. Sometimes the doves nest above me and I can hear the cooing of their fledglings as I doze peacefully.

  I was up in my favorite tree the day I heard the moving van rumbling down the dirt road beyond our orchard, with a car following behind as our new neighbors headed toward their new home. Dust rose in little whirlwinds as the truck came closer, and from the car’s open window there was the sound of girls singing.

  I sat still and squinted. It must be like this to be a bird looking down at the strange things people do. The newcomers had rooms full of oak furniture and silky rugs that shimmered with color. There were two parents who looked friendly as they bustled in and out of the house, and a shaggy collie dog they called Beau. The older of the two sisters was named Agate. She appeared to be about sixteen, with blond hair that reached to her shoulders and a laugh I could hear all the way across the orchard. The other one, Julia, was my age. She raced about collecting boxes that had her name scrawled across them from where the movers had placed them on the grass. “Mine,” she’d call out as she lugged each newly discovered box up to the porch. At one point, she kicked off her shoes and did a little dance in the grass. She looked like someone who knew how to have fun, a lesson I needed to learn. I couldn’t help but think that if I were a different person, I would want her as a friend. But a friend might want to come to our house, and when I said that wasn’t possible, she might want to know why, and then I’d have to lie and I’d feel the stinging in my mouth that I always had when I didn’t tell the whole truth.

  I couldn’t tell anyone about my brother, so there was no point to it really.

  No one even knew I had a brother, not my teachers or classmates, not even the mayor, who vowed he knew every single person in Sidwell and had shaken every hand. I’d seen the mayor not long ago at the General Store, where he was discussing the weather and the future of the Montgomery Woods. He hadn’t come out for or against the plan to develop the woods and put in houses and stores and maybe even a mall, although there probably weren’t enough people in Sidwell to shop there. Being wishy-washy seemed to keep the mayor in office. The last time I’d seen him in town, he’d shaken my hand and looked into my eyes in a piercing way, then insisted I tell him my name and age, even though I had met him half a dozen times before. “Twig. Twelve years old, and tall at that! I’ll remember your face and your name and your age because that’s what a mayor does!” But every time I saw him after that he’d narrow his eyes as if trying to think of who I might be. I didn’t blame him. I considered myself to be a shadow, a footstep in the woods that disappeared, a twig no one noticed. It was better that way. My mother always said the only way for us to stay in Sidwell was to live in the corners of everyday life.

  I was tucked so far into a corner I was just about invisible.

  I probably would have never met the Hall sisters and we might have remained strangers forever, if I hadn’t fallen out of the tree and broken my arm. I leaned forward on a branch that was split through. Ordinarily, I would have been more careful, but I was concentrating on my new neighbors, and the wavering branch broke the rest of the way with me on it. I went down hard and fast. I cried out before I could stop myself. The collie came running over, followed by the Hall sisters. There I was, sprawled out on the ground, so embarrassed I could only stutter a hello.

  My full name is Teresa Jane Fowler but everyone calls me Twig because of how much time I spend climbing apple trees, although now it seemed climbing was over for me, at least for a while.

  “Don’t move! Our father is a doctor,” the older sister, Agate, announced. She raced back to the cottage, leaving me there with the collie and the girl my own age.

  Julia introduced herself, and when I told her I was Twig from next door she nodded thoughtfully and said, “I wished there would be someone living right near us who was my age and it happened!”

  She was dark, like me, only not as tall. I felt even worse about cutting my hair so short. Hers was long and straight, almost to her waist. We looked like opposite versions of each other.

  “Does your arm hurt?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.” I wasn’t one to let my feelings show. “Perfect, as a matter of fact.”

  Julia’s face furrowed with concern. “I once broke my toe. I screamed so much I lost my voice.”

  “I’m really okay. I think I’ll just walk home now.” I was trying to be nonchalant, but my arm was throbbing. When I tried to move I gasped. The pain shot through me.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I am so not all right,” I admitted.

  “Scream. You’ll feel better. I’ll do it with you.”

  We let loose and screamed and all the doves floated up into the sky. They looked so beautiful up above us, like clouds.

  Julia was right. I did feel better.

  Dr. Hall ran out and examined me right there in the grass. He was tall and wore glasses. It was obvious that he’d had lots of practice making people feel better even when they were in pain.

  I liked him right away; he seemed very knowledgeable but not overly worried, the way my mother was whenever something went wrong. She panicked at the idea of asking for help, but Dr. Hall made it seem like helping another
person was the most natural thing in the world.

  “We’re going to take care of this before you can blink,” he assured me. He had bright blue eyes and his hair was a little gray. “Can you move your fingers like a spider on a tabletop?” he asked. When I could he said, “Perfect!”

  “You did say you were perfect.” Julia grinned at me.

  “Well, not in every way. Just in climbing trees. Or at least, I was.”

  “What about lifting your arm?” Dr. Hall asked. “How perfect is that?” I tried to raise it and winced. It was like an electric shock going through me.

  Dr. Hall told me I probably had a small fracture. My arm would have to be x-rayed, then most likely set in a cast. The folks at the hospital would need my mother’s permission. I told him our phone number, but when he tried to call no one answered. My mother was probably in the summer kitchen, a separate building beside the house where we had two huge ovens. The cider press was out there, and we usually stored baskets of apples that lasted through the winter. My mother didn’t take her phone along in order to give her baking her full attention. Dr. Hall left a message for her to call the hospital as soon as she could, and then meet us in the emergency room. “No worries,” he assured her in his message. “Nothing that can’t be fixed.”

  “Let’s go,” he called out to everyone. “Time waits for no broken bones. Hospital run.”

  The whole family piled into the car, including the very comforting Mrs. Hall, who said, “Call me Caroline. No stuffy stuff for me.” She had dark hair, cut short like mine, but she didn’t look like a pixie, she just looked fashionable, as if someone in a movie had wandered into Sidwell.

  They drove me to the hospital, with the dog, Beau, along for the ride. I looked out the window, afraid to talk too much. They chattered away, a real family, and I may have been a little jealous. I always wished my family could have done even the simplest things together. Just going for a car ride all together seemed extraordinary to me.

  When we passed the General Store I noticed something you don’t see every day in Sidwell: graffiti sprayed onto the brick wall. I had to blink to make certain I was seeing straight. There was a painted mouth with fangy teeth, all jagged and fierce. The jarring oversized words underneath read: DON’T TAKE OUR HOME AWAY.

  It was such a sad and angry image a shiver ran through me. Some members of the Gossip Group were out there examining the paint and they didn’t look too pleased. I thought Mr. Stern would just about faint when he saw his store defaced, and I wondered who in Sidwell would have the nerve to paint that message. I was relieved that the Halls didn’t notice when we passed by.

  At the hospital, everyone seemed to know Dr. Hall. We were rushed into the emergency room because my mother had already phoned to give her permission for me to be treated. She was on her way. I was certain she was worried beyond belief. Julia sat with me while the orthopedist examined me. I had X-rays, then the doctor applied the cast to my arm. When she was finished, we waited for the cast to dry, tapping on it to mark its progress.

  Julia was the first to sign my cast, with a purple marker she had in her backpack. To my friend the tree climber, from Julia Hall. Then Agate came to sign it as well. She smelled of jasmine cologne. Julia whispered it was the scent her sister always wore. Agate pushed back her long pale hair and wrote Agate Early Hall, your neighbor in tiny, beautiful script.

  All three of us were drinking hot chocolates that we’d bought in the vending machine when my mother came to fetch me. She’d left home as soon as she got the message and arrived wearing a raincoat over her old baking clothes, which were splattered with flour and cinnamon. She had pulled on the high rubber boots she used on rainy days. Since it wasn’t yet apple season, she’d been in the middle of baking strawberry rhubarb pies. Her hands were pink and flour was dusted across her face in powdery white streaks. Despite the worry all over her face, she was still the most beautiful mother in town.

  She couldn’t thank Dr. and Mrs. Hall enough, insisting she would bring them a pie to express her gratitude. She hugged me tight and I hugged her back with my good arm and assured her I was fine. Or at least, I would be soon.

  “She’s perfect,” Julia said. I grinned at her because being perfect was now a joke just between the two of us.

  My mother wanted to see for herself. She came closer so she could examine my cast. I thought she would tell me how disappointed she was in me for bringing our neighbors into our situation, but instead she frowned when she saw the names written out. Julia said hello and introduced herself and started talking about how much she liked Sidwell, but my mother didn’t seem to hear a word. She was staring at the beautiful Agate.

  “Agnes Early,” she said in a cold voice.

  I’d never heard her sound like that. There were blotches of red on my mother’s cheeks. Her eyes were narrowed with suspicion.

  “It’s Agate.” Agate left out the part about her middle name being Early, most likely because of the dark look on my mother’s face.

  My mother collected my belongings and tugged me toward the door. “We have to be going,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. “Right now.”

  “Thank you!” I called to Agate and Julia, who both seemed confused over our hurried departure. We went right past Dr. and Mrs. Hall in the corridor as if we didn’t even know them, when they’d pretty much saved me. “We hope to see you soon!” Mrs. Hall called. “Maybe for dinner!”

  My mother waved, but didn’t answer, not to say Great, we’d love to, nor to tell the truth, No, we never accept invitations. We went into the elevator and stood in silence as the doors closed behind us.

  In the parking lot, Beau woofed at me from the back of the Halls’ car and he wagged his tail, but we had already clambered into my mother’s car and we quickly pulled away, back onto the road.

  That night I was told never to go to Mourning Dove Cottage again. My arm had been broken, my mother said meaningfully. Who knew what might happen next?

  “That house brings bad luck to our family,” she announced. “And likely those people do, too.”

  “But they’re really nice. And Julia’s already invited me. If I don’t go, she’ll think I’m a snob.”

  “I wish it was different, Twig, but our families can never have anything to do with one another.” My mother gazed at my arm. “I do not expect you to see those girls again. They’re related to Agnes Early.”

  She was the Witch of Sidwell, who had lived at Mourning Dove, the relative Agate was named after.

  The one who’d set a curse on our family over two hundred years ago.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Distance Between Us

  MY BROTHER JAMES’S ROOM WAS IN THE attic. He was nearly seventeen, four years older than I am. He should have been a junior in high school, but my mother had homeschooled him all his life. He was smarter than anyone I knew. He’d taught himself French and Spanish and Latin and was already at a college level in most of his courses. He’d read every book in my grandfather’s library. He knew I loved plays, and sometimes for my entertainment he would recite speeches from Hamlet at top speed, faster and faster, until we both fell down laughing. When my mother could no longer teach him mathematics or science because he’d far surpassed her knowledge in these fields, she bought him his own computer so he could take online courses at the university.

  James was brilliant and funny and he had no idea how good-looking he was. I don’t think he’d ever looked in a mirror. He never believed me when I said if he went to Sidwell High he’d have girls following him down the halls. “Sure, Twig,” he’d say to me, and if I tried to argue with him he’d just shake his head and say, “No way.” So I just gave up trying to convince him that in our family, he’d gotten all the looks. He had long dark hair and hazel eyes that changed color depending on his mood—green when he was happy, gray and moody most of the time, black when things went seriously wrong. He was tall and loyal and he had a smile that snuck up on you and made you forgive him almost anything.

&nbs
p; James should have been on the football team, he was that strong, or been the star of the school play, he was that good-looking, or become a tennis champion, he was that quick and coordinated. It was so unfair that he couldn’t do any of these things that I got furious just thinking about it. I ranted and raved and said we should run away, into the woods the way people did in fairy tales, finding their way through the forest in search of treasure. James listened to me, then he told me the world was not a fair place and we couldn’t just run away from our lives. If everyone got what he or she deserved there would be no hunger, and no sadness, and there would certainly be no one like him, a boy who’d been locked away for his own good.

  The men of the Fowler family have carried the same curse ever since Agnes Early put a spell on the one she was meant to marry. That man was my four-times-great-grandfather Lowell.

  What he did to hurt her so, I didn’t know, but I knew the effects on our family. This is the secret we kept, which divided us from all others. Agnes Early set her spell to work, and ever since, the men in our family have had wings.

  You might imagine it would be a gift to be able to fly. In some ways it was.

  James had flown between snowflakes, he told me, he’d covered distances no man could walk in a single day. He’d sat on clouds and been cloaked in mists. Early on he had learned the language of birds, and when he called to them they would answer.