The Way the Crow Flies

by Ann-Marie MacDonald

  Applause, laughter. Henry Froelich sings along, dancing in skater-size strides with Karen in the centre of the floor.

  “… ‘bei mir bist du schön means you’re grand….’”

  Mimi gets into it, head moving, fingers snapping: “‘I could say bella, bella, even say wunderbar! Each language only serves to tell you, how grand you are! …’”

  In the McCarthy living room, Elizabeth and Rex are sound asleep. Colleen, Madeleine and Mike are huddled cross-legged on the floor, a sleeping bag around their shoulders. Not once throughout the entire evening has anyone thought of turning on the TV. The Advent candles cast a magical glow as Ricky Froelich strums and sings softly, “‘So hoist up the John B. sail. See how the mainsail sets. Call for the captain ashore, let me go home….’”.

  The others join in. They sing so quietly it’s as though they are in the middle of a forest, silent but for the scurries and hoots of busy night hunters. They sing softly so as to soothe but not wake the bears in their caves, the wolves in their dens, the rabbits in their holes. They sing so as neither to douse nor fan the glowing campfire, or shake more cold from the blue-black winter sky.

  “‘I feel so broke up, I want to go home….’”.

  Ricky outlasts them all, picking out a tune while the others sleep in a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor. But by the time the wheels of the Rambler crunch slowly up the snowy driveway, only Rex wakes at the sound.

  Jack and Mimi tiptoe up the stairs with the Froelichs right behind. They glimpse the clutter of the kitchen, where every pot and pan has been hauled out to help bang in the New Year, and stop in the living-room doorway. Mimi gestures to Karen to “come here.” She slips her arm through Karen Froelich’s and the women look in on their sleeping children. Flushed and tangled, Orange Crush moustaches, popcorn ground into the carpet, sleeping hands still clutching toys. Ricky is flaked out on the easy chair, his guitar across his knees. His eyelashes flutter; he raises his head, glances around and says, “Sorry ’bout the mess.”

  A week after New Year’s, Jack drives to London with his daughter. They take a walk in Storybook Gardens. The animals have left for the winter and only the greenhouse is still open to visitors. The castle drawbridge is closed but they slip in through snowy hedges and walk among the silent frolicking effigies. Humpty Dumpty teeters on his wall, wearing a pointed hat of snow; the witch beckons, her palm full of white powder—Madeleine takes care to avoid her eye.

  Icicles grow from Little Bo-Peep’s staff, the Cow jumps over the Moon and the Dish runs away with the Spoon, heedless of the change of weather, still in their fairy-tale finery.

  On the way home, Jack takes a detour through a winter-postcard neighbourhood, cruising slowly round the cul-de-sac of Morrow Street in the twilight. He hasn’t been summoned here in weeks. In the third-floor corner window, the curtains are open, blue light plays on the glass and ceiling. On the street, one among a line of parked cars, is the bright metallic blue Ford Galaxy—on its rear bumper, a yellow sticker from Storybook Gardens. Jack pulls away. Let sleeping dogs lie.

  REX FOUND HER. She was in a field beyond the ravine at Rock Bass, halfway between the cornfield and the woods. German shepherds are natural trackers. It’s terrible what happens to a face after death by strangulation. He recognized her scent as being hers and not hers. The sight of her made him bark because, for Rex, it was as though she had put on a Halloween mask.

  On her back, beneath a criss-cross of last year’s bulrushes, clumps of bluebells, wildflowers, April showers. Hairband not askew. Eyes closed. Eyes do not naturally close in death by strangulation.

  There is nothing peaceful or natural about the faces of people who have died that way. They look terrifying. A child’s peaceful body, soft pixie cut, and a monster face. It’s as though the evil of the person who killed her has leapt onto her face. She does not look like anybody’s child. She does not look like anybody any more.

  SWINGING ON A STAR

  BY MARCH IT SEEMS as though winter will never end. But the earth knows when spring must come, and already the unseen bluebells and lily of the valley are tipped with green, tenderly curled but stirring beneath the soil. Deer can smell the trickling water, and they paw the banks for new shoots; in their nests, birds await the miracle of the first beaks to breach their shells.

  It is two and a half weeks before Easter but you can still feel winter. Yesterday was warmer and it rained, but Jack Frost is back today, that’s what March is like. On the road there are still a few worms but they are frozen. Wormsicles. There is a certain kind of ice on the puddles at the side of the road, the thin glass kind, fracturing like a sugar pane when you delicately press your boot, smashing like a windshield when you jump. Later in the day, when it gets warmer, you will be able to push the puddle’s barely frozen surface and see it wrinkle and fold like a sheet. Where there is bare earth and bumpy old grass, the clumps glitter cold, fine-crunching beneath your boot, grains of glass melting from the faint heat of your foot. These are the things of March.

  In the park, Madeleine notices green spears piercing the brown and yellow patches amid the receding snow, tough little crocuses; and there is the whiff of thawing dog-doo, reappearing now in wells of granular old snow. It is still cold, but not so cold that you couldn’t eat an apple outside and taste it. Not so cold that snot will freeze on your nose. Grown-ups say that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. What does that mean?

  Today is the last Thursday in March. In two weeks it will be Holy Thursday. Then it will be Easter Sunday, and that means chocolate bunnies and hunting for Easter eggs—the end of Lent. Maman has been very impressed by Madeleine’s abstinence from candy, especially chocolate. But she’d had plenty of practice with the Mr. March candy. In a way Madeleine has cheated, because Lent is supposed to be hard. It occurs to her now that if she had really wanted to give up something important, she could have put her Bugs Bunny away for forty days.

  She stops halfway down St. Lawrence Avenue, on her way to school, and takes a deep breath. Bugs would smother, because where would he be? In a closet? In a drawer? In the dark. No. After forty days of suffocating on his own, having no one to tell his jokes to, how could Madeleine expect they could ever be friends again? Now that would be something. To give up Bugs entirely. To give him away to a needy child overseas. To love Jesus more than Bugs. Oh no.

  She crushes some icy mud into chocolate milk with her galoshes. She has never thought about it in this way before. If she is not willing to give up Bugs, does that mean she loves him more than Jesus? More than God? Who is God? He is an angry person who loves you. Does He want her to sacrifice Bugs? God sacrificed His only son, that’s why we have Easter. It is blasphemy even to compare Jesus to Bugs Bunny. Bugs on the cross. Now I’ve hoid everything. Turning bread into carrots. Madeleine walks on, trying not to think these thoughts, sorry dear God. Jesus is supposed to be the one at your side, the one you talk to, not Bugs. Just as your guardian angel is always at your side. A huge silvery person who hovers, waiting for you to be run over or fall off a bridge. Madeleine knows that even though they are supposed to protect you, your guardian angel would like nothing better than to take you straight up to heaven while you are still a child with a pure white soul. God loves the souls of children best of all. They are his favourite. Yum. Like the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and that is another bad thought because you should not think about God in that way. Fee-fiefo fum. Think of kind Jesus—suffer the little children. Madeleine slows down, out of range of her own house, still too far from the school—maybe someone’s mother will let her use their bathroom. All of a sudden she has to go.

  What if God wants her? There is nothing you can do if God wants you. There is nowhere to hide, it’s like an air raid only worse because God is everywhere, especially in an air-raid shelter. When people get a vocation, they hear a voice saying, “Be a nun”—or if they are a boy, “Be a priest”—and there is nothing they can do, they have to be one. Because it’s God�
�s voice speaking. Forget it if you wanted to be on Ed Sullivan instead of in a convent. Forget it if you are too young to die, there are plenty of child martyrs, they perform miracles all the time, creepy little happy dead kids.

  Madeleine starts to run.

  Down St. Lawrence Avenue she runs, toward the schoolyard, where the crowd of kids jumbles like a plate of Smarties in an earthquake, running with her schoolbag banging against her back, listening to the March wind in her ears, straining to hear the playground screams that will drown out the Voice of God; running so fast that her throat begins to ache, outrunning her guardian angel winging behind now in pursuit with his or her huge sad face at the thought of how Madeleine will be run over in a minute, and how her pure white soul will be carried lovingly up to God. At this thought she stops running. Sputters to a walk, her heart still pounding. Unzips her quilted jacket—even though you might get pneumonia if you open your jacket in the cold while you’re sweating.

  She catches her breath and does not even turn around to see if her guardian angel is there. Because she is in no immediate danger of death or even a vocation. It’s okay. She has just remembered that her soul is not pure white. It’s yellowish. Like an old sheet. Because of the things from last fall. When she was little. The exercises. Don’t think about them, just remember, it’s okay. Your soul is not pure white.

  She walks toward the school, her heart beating normally now. Her underpants feel wadded and damp and she hopes it is just sweat. The bell goes as she steps from the street onto the squishy field, and she sees the lineups filing in. She starts skipping, because when you are out of breath from running it’s amazing how easy it is to skip and never get tired, and it’s almost as fast as running. She arrives just in time to join the end of the grade four line as it files in the front doors past Mr. March, who says, “You’re looking particularly blithe this morning, Miss McCarthy.”

  Up ahead, Auriel turns around and plugs her nose, and Lisa makes a Mr. March triple chin, so that Madeleine has difficulty keeping a straight face. She says, “Thank you Mr. March,” and recognizes in her own voice an echo of Eddie Haskell’s on Leave It to Beaver.

  Once in the classroom, Madeleine sits at her desk and is relieved to note that her underpants have dried already—that’s how you can tell if it’s just sweat and not pee. Up at the front, an immense single-layer chocolate cake sits on Mr. March’s desk, dotted with eleven candles that look as sparse as trees on a prairie.

  “My wife made this cake.”

  Mrs. March. Picture him lying on top of her.

  He removes the Saran Wrap and licks his thumb. “Would the birthday girl please rise?”

  Grace Novotny gets up, tastes the corner of her mouth and grins at the floor. The class sings “Happy Birthday” with the gusto of nine-year-olds who know they are about to have cake. Philip Pinder and a couple of other boys sing, “You look like a monkey and you smell like one too.”

  Mr. March lights the candles. “Would the birthday girl please proceed to the front of the class?”

  Grace has gotten tall. You don’t usually notice how everyone has grown until after the summer holidays, but Grace had a growth spurt over Christmas—at least now she is growing into some of the clothes she has to wear.

  Madeleine is grateful to be herself. How could anyone bear to be Grace Novotny? She has grown breasts, Madeleine can see them, like little dunce caps on her chest. Tits. She has already been given a titty-twister by Philip Pinder. She cried. Titty-twisters are very painful, boys give them to each other all the time, grabbing the flesh around each other’s nipples and wrenching. Grace’s new breasts are another thing that makes everyone else in the class, even Marjorie and Philip, seem clean. Whereas something swampy is happening to Grace.

  The vast cake blazes on Mr. March’s desk. “Well don’t just stand there, little girl. Blow.”

  Grace blows and blows until her germs have covered every inch of the cake.

  Mr. March cuts it into thirty pieces, remarking, “Mrs. March has never had to make such a big cake before.” Madeleine wonders what his wife looks like. Is she fat too? Could she eat no lean?

  Everyone files up to receive a slice on blotting paper. They eat silently. Some don’t eat their icing and it’s obvious why: germs. Madeleine can’t bring herself to eat hers at all. Two rows over, Claire McCarroll is eating only the icing.

  Madeleine closes her eyes and tries not to smell cake.

  “What’s the matter, little girl, don’t you like chocolate cake?”

  “I’m not hungry,” replies Madeleine. Besides, it’s still Lent.

  He is standing over her. “Since when has hunger ever had anything to do with it when it comes to chocolate cake?” The class laughs politely.

  Mr. March takes her cake, breaks it in two and gives half each to Marjorie and Grace.

  A half-hour later, they are in the middle of a spelling exercise, working quietly at their desks, when Grace gets up to sharpen a pencil and Madeleine sees blood on the back of her skirt.

  “Grace,” says Madeleine, out loud.

  Mr. March looks up.

  Grace turns around to face Madeleine. “What?” And Mr. March sees what Madeleine saw, so does the front half of the class. A gasp goes up.

  “You hurt yourself,” says Madeleine, trying to be polite.

  “Little girl,” says Mr. March. Grace knows he is talking to her so she turns to face him, and the whole back half of the class gasps. She turns again quickly, as though stung by a bee, loose pleats flying; craning her neck, she sees the back of her skirt and screams. Wails. Some other girls start crying too and a couple of boys start laughing. Everyone else just stares. Blood. From someone’s bum. Lisa Ridelle has dropped her head between her knees—her father is a doctor, he has told her what to do when she feels faint. Grace sobs, her mouth wide open, clear saliva spilling down the corners, eyes veering from the bloodstain to Madeleine, as though Madeleine had something to do with it.

  “Silence,” says Mr. March, then a shocking smack!—the yardstick across his desk. Grace is silent. “This little girl belongs at home,” he says. “Hands?”

  He is asking for someone to walk Grace home with her bleeding bum, why doesn’t he just call an ambulance? Grace is staring at Madeleine as though Madeleine were a speck on the horizon, a ship. Oh no. Madeleine can feel it. She is going to raise her hand. See? You should have given up Bugs for Lent, now you must make a sacrifice and walk Grace Novotny home. Madeleine feels her hand rising from the desk—

  “Marjorie Nolan,” says Mr. March. “Walk this little girl home.”

  Everyone looks at Marjorie. She doesn’t move. No one does. Grace is whimpering, walking slowly toward the coat hooks, clutching the back of her skirt to hide the spot.

  “Slow as molasses in January,” says Mr. March. Grateful laughter from the class. “Miss Nolan?” says Mr. March.

  Marjorie gets up and walks briskly to the back, puts on her jacket, zips it up and waits with folded arms while Grace removes her cardigan from its hook and ties the sleeves around her waist so it will hang down and hide the stain.

  “All right grade fours, the show is over, turn to page forty-one in your Macmillan spellers.”

  Madeleine sneaks a look back. Grace will freeze with not even her cardigan on. Madeleine gets up without permission, gets her own jacket and gives it to Grace. Grace puts it on without a word, like a sleepwalker, and leaves.

  Madeleine walks back to her desk. Now everyone is looking at her.

  Mr. March says, “Behold the good Samaritan.”

  Laughter. Everything feels normal again. Madeleine takes a bow.

  “Thank you Miss McCarthy, you may sit down now.”

  He doesn’t sound angry. He sounds the way he always does. As though compelled to mock something that makes him very weary indeed.

  Grace returns to school after lunch with a different skirt on. At recess she stays in and feeds the gerbil a piece of lettuce—Sputnik almost died because Philip Pinder drove him
across the floor like a Dinky Toy. Grace has been looking after him ever since. At two minutes to three, Mr. March picks up his clipboard. “The following little girls….” They have all started to fish out their homework from their desks—everyone except Joyce Nutt, Diane Vogel, Marjorie and Grace. He has started calling them “monitors.” No one wonders any more what they do, it is just a fact of Mr. March’s class.

  Madeleine puts away her speller and hauls out her arithmetic book, dreading tonight’s homework—they have progressed from the purgatory of word problems to the hell of integers. “Joyce Nutt”—gone the friendly disguise of narrative. How could a word story describe what these numbers do? They go through the looking glass. The ghosts of real numbers, they live underground—“and Diane Vogel.” Madeleine looks up. Something is different. Mr. March sits down. The bell goes. Ecstatic scraping of chairs—

  “In an orderly fashion, boys and girls.”

  Madeleine zips up her jacket and sees that Marjorie and Grace have remained at their desks. Mr. March didn’t read out their names, that’s what is different. Still, Marjorie waits with her hands folded in front of her. Grace’s mouth hangs open slightly, she is twirling her hair and looking at Marjorie.

  Madeleine is pulling on her rubber boots when Mr. March says, “Little girls, did you hear your names?” Grace giggles. Marjorie’s profile turns pink.

  “Well?” says Mr. March, his voice droll. “Run along then. Your presence is not required.”

  Madeleine watches Marjorie rise slowly from her desk. Grace follows. As Marjorie turns, her gaze meets that of Madeleine, who is surprised to see that Marjorie’s customary smug expression has deserted her. In its place is a look of pure bewilderment. Madeleine experiences a pang of sympathy, but the next instant Marjorie’s eyes narrow maliciously and she sticks out her tongue. Madeleine leaves quickly by the side door.