Blackbird

by Averil Dean

  And slipped the gold watch off his brother’s wrist.

  * * *

  As the bumps smoothed out, he swept into a side run where the snow was light and soft. This trail had been cleared decades before by the community of Jawbone Ridge, in order to give skiers access to the town and bring in their share of tourists’ dollars. Julian sometimes stopped on his way back to town in order to clear the snow from the small brown sign at the side of the run, run his gloved fingers through the troughs of the carved yellow letters and the arrow pointing right.

  At the moment the sign was barely visible, but it would be pointless to clear the snow away. He flashed past, catching a flat bit of air, then driving his edge into the final turn. He lowered himself over his skis and took the last bit in a hurry, eager to be back indoors.

  The run narrowed and wound through a small stand of evergreens. A tall dark shape appeared through the snow, its long windows glowing with a pale yellow light. Julian pulled up at the edge of the tree line and popped off his skis. He slung them over his shoulder and carried them to the side of the hotel and into the mudroom and left them with the others outside the kitchen door. Judging by the collection of footgear, everyone was here except for Kate, who was skiing in from a green run after they’d parted at the top of the lift.

  “You go ahead,” she’d told him. “I can’t ski in this. I feel like I’m going to wrap myself around a tree.”

  “I’ll go slow,” he said. “You can follow me.”

  “Your slow and mine are two different things. Go on—I’m not skiing a diamond in this stuff.”

  He should have stayed with her, to make sure she got back safely. That would have been the gallant thing to do. But gallantry had never been his strong suit.

  He kicked Eric’s boots aside and sat his in the corner next to Celia’s, then gave himself a brush down to get the snow off his shoulders and out of his hair. He unzipped his coat and hung it up to dry on a peg by the window. It gave him a peculiar warm feeling to see all their coats hung up that way. Everyone would be inside, waiting, and Celia would have something ready to eat, an open bottle of wine on the table. He wished he could burst in the door, calling, “Honey, I’m home!” like in an old-time sitcom or a black-and-white movie. The kitchen at the Blackbird felt that way.

  He opened the door.

  The bottom scraped on something, as though a piece of wood or glass was trapped underneath. He put his head around the door to investigate.

  An unfamiliar smell assailed him—coppery, acidic. A scent he felt he should know, that raised the hairs on the back of his neck and sent a cold river of adrenaline down his spine.

  The room was in a shambles. The floor was strewn with broken glass and crockery, and a chair had been overturned and was lying on its side against the cupboard doors. A can of paint must have tipped over, he could see a pool of it spreading across the floor.

  He stared at it uneasily.

  Blue paint, it was supposed to be. The cans had been lined up on the floor, dots of color on each lid to show what was inside. Turquoise blue. Celia had talked about it, said how pretty that paint would be in her kitchen. But the paint on the floor wasn’t blue; it was red. Dark, dark red.

  Now he remembered that smell. It was the scent of emergency rooms.

  The scent of blood.

  He took a cautious step into the room.

  Rory was lying on his back in the paint. Oh, God, wait, no. Not paint. The paint was blood, a huge perfect pool of it like a cartoon drawing. Rory’s eyes were half-open and vacant, with a dull film over the irises. His mouth was crusted around the edges, his teeth streaked pink, with lines of dark red drying between them like spilled wine.

  Julian stood perfectly still. His own blood raced inward, so that his arms and legs felt empty and his torso overfull. He reached numbly for the countertop and stared down at Rory in disbelief.

  He’d just seen him. Just this morning. Big, young, sandy-haired kid. This morning Rory had been chopping wood—and not even with a chain saw, but with an ax like Paul-fucking-Bunyan. A huge pile of logs lay beside him, ready to be hauled inside and stacked next to the fireplace. He’d stripped out of his jacket, and a cloud of steam rose around his head as he swung the ax and sank it cleanly into the heart of the wood. The log split apart with a thick crack.

  He’d looked up smiling, wiping his forehead with the back of his glove.

  “Taking the Plunge this morning?” he said.

  “Thought I might.” Julian set his skis against the wall as he pulled on his hat. “Why don’t you meet us up there?”

  “I might, if Celia lets me out of here. Got my eye on the bowl today, though.”

  “Jesus, son, it’ll be running with avies today. Don’t break your head.”

  Rory grinned, his teeth flashing white in the sunshine. “Okay, Grandpa.”

  Julian had hopped into his bindings and slid away without a word, Rory’s confident young voice echoing in his head. Okay, Grandpa.

  Arrogant prick.

  Now here he was, blue-lipped and preternaturally still. Empty. His heavy chest and shoulders and legs seemed full of latent power, but it was the strength of a Thoroughbred in peak condition that breaks a leg before crossing the finish line. His brawn was worthless now. A big, beautiful waste.

  For a fleeting moment, gazing down at Rory, Julian felt his own body throbbing with life. The pulse in his ear. The dizzying push-pull of his lungs. His very uprightness felt like winning.

  But on its heels came a rush of fear, swarming up the back of his neck. An impulse to call for help, to be surrounded by other living souls.

  The phone was in the common room. Julian crossed the kitchen, avoiding the shards of ceramic and glass, and rounded the corner to the side table at the foot of the stairs where the phone sat. As he picked up the receiver, he turned and got a second shock.

  The side door was standing open. Through it he saw Eric lying in the snow outside. One arm was wedged underneath his body, the other flung out beside him and bent at a strange angle, palm up, his legs stretched perfectly straight like a felled tree.

  The phone hummed a dial tone.

  For the first time, Julian realized how quiet it was. His thoughts on finding Rory had not progressed to the point of wondering what happened. But they went there now. His mind collapsed to a small, dense point, spiraling inward, centered around a name.

  Celia.

  A sharp bang cracked the stillness.

  He dropped the phone and plunged across to the stairs. His legs had gone numb, heavy, and the staircase loomed above him. He stumbled upward, dragging himself along with his arms, as if his body had divided in two: one part sodden with dread, the other disbelieving, clear-eyed, certain she was just as he left her.

  She wasn’t here; she couldn’t be. She must have taken Rory’s truck around the mountain to Telluride. Maybe into Montrose for a hardware run—they did that all the time. Not here, she wasn’t here, it was too quiet, she was far from this nightmare Julian had stumbled into, she was far away and safe, of course she was. Of course she was.

  But at the back of his mind was Celia’s voice—her ordinary, everyday, sleep-husky voice telling them over breakfast, “Today I’m going to spackle the kitchen and tape it off, maybe get started on those pillows for the blue room...”

  She hadn’t planned to leave the hotel.

  Julian staggered up the curving steps to the long hallway and the row of doors, four on either side. He pounded at them with his fists as he passed.

  “Celia! Celia!”

  A horrifying vision swam through his mind: Celia on her back, her mouth full of blood. Eyes gone dull and sightless, fixed on some distant point as if searching for the source of a far-off sound.

  His mind tripped along a series of fragmentary sentences.

 
Oh, God...not...not, not, not...it’s fine, she’s not even here...

  The door at the end of the hall was locked. Julian rattled the handle, banged at the door with his open palm, began to pummel it with his shoulder. He backed up and charged at it. Once, twice. On the third try, the doorjamb cracked apart. He kicked it open and he was through.

  He edged into the room.

  A small shape lay huddled on the bed—laundry, he thought, weak with relief. She’s left her laundry, that’s all it is. But a thick tawny braid snaked across the pillow, tied at the end with a piece of twine and adorned with a sparrow’s feather.

  Julian’s knees locked. He braced himself against the wall to stay upright. A wave of inundating heat passed through him, from the top of his head to his feet, like diving headfirst into a pool of hot water. His lungs ached for air, but his chest had constricted so tight he couldn’t draw a breath. His tongue tripped at the roof of his mouth.

  He crept stiffly up to the bed as though he might wake her.

  His eyes slid over the bed and came to rest on her hand, drooped around the gun. Her thumb was curled around the trigger. Her lips were still moist, slightly parted; a tendril of hair lay unmoving across her mouth.

  He stared at it, all the baby-fine hairs like a veil, the edge of one pearly tooth gleaming through.

  A burst of hot water filled his mouth.

  His eyes darted from her face. He noticed for the first time a sheet of folded paper on the pillow, with her handwriting across the front:

  Julian

  I know what you did.

  From downstairs, the silence was ripped by a low-pitched scream.

  Kate. Kate finding Rory. Her screams deepened to a guttural, rhythmic roar like the cries of a doomed animal. Julian would think of that sound later, would replay it over and over in the long nights to come, feeling again the shivered rise of hair on his arms and the back of his neck, the near-release of his bladder, checked at the last moment to fester hot and agitated in his groin.

  He bent to the pillow, plucked up the note with the very tips of his fingers, folded it into quivery squares that he tucked inside his pocket. He couldn’t look at Celia, couldn’t stroke her hair, couldn’t touch her skin even to smooth her eyelids closed. She was gone. What was left of her terrified him.

  He backed out of the room, toward the sound of Kate’s unending screams.

  * * *

  What were they fighting about? the sheriff wanted to know.

  Kate and Julian stared at him blankly, hunched side by side under blue woolen blankets in the back of a bright white ambulance.

  They didn’t turn their heads to look at each other.

  Sir? Do you know what might have set this off?

  The question filled the space like water. Julian could hardly breathe.

  * * *

  Much later, Julian pulled up in front of Kate’s house. A sheet of snow drifted through the beams of the headlights.

  She sat beside him, sedated, silent, staring through the light at the dark cluster of pines beside the road. Her expression in profile was impossible to read.

  He got out of the car, pulled her overnight bag from the trunk and started to carry it up the driveway to the front door. But she stepped out, blocking his path. She took the bag from his hand.

  Julian shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Do you—” He cleared his throat. “Will I come by tomorrow?”

  Her gaze shifted vaguely to his face.

  She turned and went up the walk, a small lone figure, hunched and careful like an old woman. She opened the door and went inside without looking back.

  One hour previously: 3:33 p.m.

  “I don’t know if I want to share you anymore.”

  The words bubbled up Rory’s throat and formed on his lips and burst into the room. For a moment he felt a wild relief at hearing them. Finally, the truth was out. He couldn’t take it back, play it off, retreat or rephrase. He’d said what he wanted to say, for better or worse.

  Then he turned, following Celia’s gaze, and felt the relief ebb away.

  Eric was in the kitchen.

  Outside, a thick icicle fell past the kitchen window and embedded itself in the snowbank with a tiny hiss. Its falling seemed to open a fissure in the floor of the room, widening to a chasm, with Rory and Celia on one side and Eric teetering on the other.

  The color drained from Eric’s face. He was looking not at Rory but at Celia, his eyes flickering in place.

  “It’s just something we say,” Celia said in her unhurried way. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

  But her neck was reddened from Rory’s stubbled cheek and a sexual musk hung thick in the air. Celia’s denial dropped into the silence like a rock into the sea.

  Rory opened his mouth and closed it without speaking. This was the day he had long dreaded—the day it all would end. He’d thought it would have been Eric to break free, to become restless or demanding or—and Rory was ashamed of how often he’d wished for this—to become unstable and pull himself away from Celia for her own good. They had talked about it more than once.

  “I want her to be happy,” Eric had said. “If I really go off the rails, man, make sure she kicks me to the curb.”

  “You’re not going to do that,” Rory said. “You’re fine now. Everything’s under control.”

  “Am I? Sometimes...”

  He’d never finished the sentence, but Rory had seen his fist contract, the strange prick of light in Eric’s eyes that made Rory feel as if he were being sighted through the scope of a rifle.

  Same as he was seeing now.

  Eric crossed the room slowly, his feet scraping along the floor, head thrust out ahead of him until he was right in front of Celia. He lowered his nose to her hair and inhaled, ran the knuckle of his first finger over her lip. He took her face between his hands and kissed her openmouthed, his shoulders bowed and tense, thumbs pressing dents into the skin under her jaw.

  “You smell like him,” he said against her lips.

  With one hand he shoved her away. Celia stumbled back. Her head banged hard against the wall. Her eyes widened, fixed on Eric, one hand moving slowly up to the back of her head.

  “You’re a cheap girl, baby. A carnival prize. My dad always said you were worthless, and you know what? He was right.”

  Rage erupted in Rory’s chest and flared down his limbs. In three strides he had covered the distance, clenched Eric’s shirt in his fist and dragged him away from Celia. A dull red light suffused his vision. The blood howled in his ears.

  “It’s okay,” Celia said. Her voice floated over him, barely penetrating the roar of his own heartbeat. “Rory, I’m okay.”

  Eric pushed himself free. He looked Rory full in the face, a crescent of white showing at the bottom of his irises, two hard lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth.

  “You don’t want to share,” he said. “You don’t.”

  He spread his arms wide. Rory had the sensation that he was watching Eric fall from a great height, like he’d lost his grip on Eric and could only stand helplessly by as his friend’s body slipped farther and farther away, plummeting toward the earth. Eric’s voice vibrated as if he were yelling, but Rory had to strain to hear him.

  “This is mine, brother,” Eric said, smacking the door with his palm—the door that they had removed and painted and rehung together, with sweetly oiled hinges and a new brass knob. “This is my kitchen. This is my wall. This is my table. These are my goddamn pots and pans.” He grabbed a wooden spoon and banged it against the pots that were hanging on their rack over the kitchen island. The rack Rory had built. “My dishes, my fridge, my oven, my girl.”

  He dug into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a jagged human tooth. He slammed it down on the counter and jabbe
d at it with his forefinger.

  “My fight,” he said.

  A wave of dizzying grief swept over Rory. It was gone. Everything they had was gone, as swiftly as that. A stranger was looking through Eric’s eyes, and Rory couldn’t find a single word to say to him.

  “So when you say you don’t want to share,” Eric said, “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “No one’s sharing.” Celia’s voice was so quiet after Eric’s that it seemed to be coming from another room. “This isn’t about that.”

  Eric swayed on his feet as his head swiveled around. He looked at Celia as if he’d just remembered she was there.

  “I’m not—” she began.

  “You’re a slut, honey, is what you are.”

  Celia looked back at him, unsurprised. Not shocked as Rory was at the ugly word, but shaking her head as if she’d heard him use it before and was only objecting to the context.

  The weight of Rory’s anger pressed at the top of his head. His fists hung at his sides like two large stones.

  “You fucking prick. Say it again.”

  “He’s drunk, Rory, just—”

  “Don’t you defend me.” Eric’s voice rang through the kitchen, shooting upward, a high-pitched, vibrating trumpet of words. “I’m the only honest person in this room. Defend yourself.”

  He edged toward her, his chin jutting upward like a pointed finger.

  “You’re the problem here. You’ve got us coming and going, don’t you, baby. You’re the common denominator for every goddamn problem we have, and you know why that is? It’s because you’re selfish.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re the problem. You’re the one who can’t let her pussy get dry.”

  Rory started forward, his head swimming with disoriented outrage. A gag line raced through his mind: Who are you, and what have you done with Eric?

  Celia held out her hand to stop him. Her arm was stiff and trembling, but her voice sounded groggy, as if she were just waking from a thick sleep.

  “Rory, don’t, it’s okay—”

  “Don’t you defend me!” Eric’s face was plummy with rage. “You’re a witch, goddamn you, fucking with people’s heads.”