by Kat Ellis
Little Bird appears, her eyes glassy and unfocused, and the camera pans out to reveal the villagers feasting on her body—except their motions revive her, putting flesh back where it was torn away, and she sucks in her death cry. It cuts to the scene where she emerges, ragged and dirty, from the cave where she’s been hiding. But she’s walking backward, her movements jarring and unnatural as she fades into the darkness of the cave mouth. Her eyes glint white against black on the screen, then she’s gone.
Why would anyone re-cut Nightjar this way? The movie is creepy enough without turning it into this disjointed nightmare.
The villagers hold their lanterns high as they chase Lorelei through a tunnel in reverse. They’re dressed just like the people I’ve seen on Main Street.
It moves on to a shot of the preacher walking backward through the ruins of the church, and then the screen goes blank for a moment—the scenes aren’t cut together right. When it comes back on, the shot shifts, seen from someone else’s perspective as they look down at the leaf-laden ground in the woods. There’s a pair of shoes, narrow with rounded toes. A girl appears, seen from behind now. She has long black hair and casts a slender shadow between the trees.
She reaches out to take someone’s hand—one with long, needlelike fingers. And as the girl’s hand comes into focus, I see her skin is pale and cracked like dropped porcelain. The screen goes black again; another messy cut.
Mister Jitters wasn’t in Nightjar. He wasn’t. And there was no girl with long black hair, either . . . I stifle a shudder that I tell myself is just from the cold, and not because the girl looked so familiar, even though I only saw her from behind . . .
The video flares back to life, and now Little Bird rushes through the caves where the underground gondola ride runs, casting terrified glances over her shoulder as though she hears something coming in the darkness. There’s no sign of Mister Jitters or the girl.
The scene folds in on itself, moving on, moving backward, moving faster until my eyes blur and I close them for just a moment, blocking out everything but the rat-a-tat-tat of the projector vibrating inside my skull.
Then it stops. I blink, but the darkness is dense. Only a glimmer of near-light bleeds in under the closed door. I stagger up from my seat, shaking out limbs gone stiff and cold—when did I even sit down?—and grope my way to the door.
“Carter?” I call out. There’s no answer. “Mr. Bryn?”
It’s slightly brighter out in the book-lined corridor, even though the lights are off. Where the hell did Carter go? I hurry toward the front of the museum. I just want to get out of here.
The front desk is unattended when I reach it. No sign of Mr. Bryn. The shelves and display cabinets cast long shadows. The walls inch closer.
“Hello? Is anyone here?”
My words flee through the hallways, stumbling and dying in the dark. “Carter?”
How long have I been here? Why didn’t Carter come find me?
Did I fall asleep?
No, it’s this place, this town where time doesn’t move forward like it’s supposed to. Where stories get stuck in your head like a tooth burrowed deep in your flesh. I feel like Harrow Lake is working its way inside me.
I race for the front door, praying it’s still open, almost tripping over some invisible obstacle in the dark.
I turn the door handle. Jump out of my skin at the loud brrrrrrring of the door chime. Thank God it’s not locked. Why isn’t it locked?
Outside, the town looks different. There are a few cars parked along Main Street, but it’s dark now, and the storefronts are all asleep. There isn’t a soul around. Only those bent old lady streetlights burn through the darkness. Harrow Lake is a held breath.
I clutch my skirt to hurry down the steps and almost tear my dress when something crackles between my fingers. It’s the sketch I stole from the record room, still tucked inside my pocket.
The shadow-form of the weeping willow looms up ahead. I walk faster, almost level with it. A breeze keeps catching in the willow’s branches, drifting through them like thick fingers, making its leaves rustle and sway.
There’s no breeze.
I ignore the thought and face front, straight toward Main Street. But I strangle a shriek when something tugs at my dress. I whip around—I’ve wandered close enough to the willow for its outer branches to catch my skirt. I back up a step, two. Someone is waiting in the hollow of the willow’s branches, I’m sure of it.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.
He’s coming . . .
I picture Mister Jitters inside that stifled, hollow space. An enormous praying mantis, grinning his awful grin.
Impossible.
But when you’re alone in the dark, impossible things grow bones and flesh.
Don’t be ridiculous, Lola. I expect more from you. It’s Nolan’s voice now. God, how I wish it were real.
Except I’m not imagining the low sound coming from within the willow’s overhang. Like a door creaking open . . .
I bolt, the chattering rhythm of my footsteps chasing me, only growing fainter when I reach the lane to Grandmother’s house and the woods swallow the sound.
It’s only as I’m going upstairs that I notice the picture is gone from my skirt pocket—as though long fingers reached out from the dark recess of the willow tree and plucked it out.
I took the sketch because I wanted Carter to see me.
I guess someone did. Just not him.
* * *
• • •
My cheeks are wet when I wake up, my chest aching with sobs. It’s still dark. Maybe time really has stopped moving.
I hear nothing except for the creaks and groans I’m starting to get used to—just the old house stretching its spine. I can’t remember what I was dreaming, but the feel of it lingers. It unraveled me. Like that movie at the museum, I’ve been torn apart and put back together out of sequence.
The wind shushes faintly through the trees outside. I slept with the window open, needing fresh air in this house that holds none. The moving patterns of the lace curtains project onto the ceiling, making shadow monsters. They hover above me, out of reach, shifting and dancing. It’s impossible not to watch them.
I get up to close the window, hoping that will stop the shadow show playing out on my ceiling, and when I look out across the backyard I see her.
She’s out there again.
I should go down there. I should scratch out her eyes and see how she likes watching me then.
She takes off—not into the trees like before, but toward the house. She moves out of sight and a door slams downstairs. I whirl around, ready to throw myself against my bedroom door to barricade it. But she’s already inside. Facing me in the shadows of my room.
I stumble back onto the bed, a scream bitten off, tongue in my teeth. My spine presses hard against the cold wall. There are monsters at my back, too. Hidden in the wallpaper.
“Lola.”
I don’t register the whisper until her face is lit by a sliver of moonlight filtering in between the curtains. I reach for my phone, but of course it’s not there—it’s at the bottom of a watery sinkhole. Instead I fumble for the switch to the bedside lamp.
My hand flies to my mouth when I see her. Her skin is a web of scars spreading down from her temple across her left cheek, down her neck to one pale hand. Her face is gaunt, her big green eyes steady as she watches me. And, when she grins, one white tooth hangs slanted from an otherwise perfect smile.
It’s Mary Ann. This is impossible. She looks different, not the broken doll being pummeled into a trash can, and not the black-haired little girl my imagination summoned into being. This girl is a new creature—one who has crawled from some dark crack in my brain. She has grown with me, but into what, I’m not sure.
“Lola,” she whispers again, unfazed by the ligh
t. “You’ve been crying. Were you dreaming about Lorelei again?”
I can only shake my head. This can’t be happening.
Mary Ann tilts her head. The gesture reminds me of Caw in her cage in Carter’s bedroom. “Weren’t you expecting me? You know I’d never abandon you, no matter what.”
She is the girl I saw outside my window my first night in Harrow Lake. The one I saw swinging from the gate at the fairground. It was her in the badly cut version of Nightjar at the museum. Coming back to me in glimpses. Finding me when I’m fractured.
Now it seems she’s slithered out of the cracks.
“Scoot over,” she lisps, then proceeds to climb into bed next to me. I feel the mattress shift. The bedsprings squeal. I don’t move. I can’t remember what moving is.
Mary Ann turns off the light and tugs my arm until I lie next to her. Her skin is cool and smooth. I can see her face in profile, the marks from where Larry cracked her head turned into scars on her ashen skin. They look just like the fading ink marks on my forearm.
Blood in the cracks . . .
“What are you doing here?” I whisper. But she doesn’t tell me. “What do you want?”
“Just go to sleep, and no more bad dreams.”
I lie there in the dark for what feels like hours, listening to her steady breaths and the wind building up to a roar outside, until I finally figure out what this is. I’m dreaming, of course. Another dream. A very strange dream, but that’s all it is. I try to force some of the tension from my stiff muscles, but I can’t. Not when I feel her next to me; she feels so real.
Finally, I must fall asleep, because when I wake again, she’s gone. I can’t hear the storm outside anymore. Just the breathless quiet.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
My back aches after my restless night, and I try to stretch it out as I walk down the lane from the house. It’s the official opening of the festival today, and I’m hoping I’ll see Carter there. I want to know what the hell happened to him yesterday at the museum. If he hadn’t just left me there, I never would’ve stumbled on that movie room. And maybe then I wouldn’t have spent half the night dreaming up nightmare versions of imaginary girls.
The parade is in full swing when I reach Main Street. Old cars cruise by the people lining the sidewalk, early model Fords and Chevrolets and Durants, and other names I’m only familiar with because of Nolan’s obsession with them.
The parade cars have been trimmed with garlands of fall leaves on their hoods and sills. People wander along behind them, dressed in thick woolen coats and hats that make no sense in the summer heat, but are true to Nightjar’s fall setting.
Behind the cars is a stream of scruffy-looking teens, made up like the savage townsfolk from the end of the film. They carry wooden bats and pitchforks, ready to corner Little Bird in the penultimate fairground scene. But they’re all far too chipper, waving at friends in the crowd and twirling their weapons. Nolan would be appalled.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” a woman next to me coos, then gasps when she takes in my Little Bird sailor dress. “Oh my, you look so much like her, it’s uncanny! Where did you get that adorable little number? It’s looks so authentic!”
The woman has a Southern accent and is wearing such an unflattering version of Little Bird’s blue knit dress that I’m almost offended. But I just nod and ghost-smile, hoping she’ll give up and talk to someone else.
I’m not that lucky.
“Your hair is too long, of course, and a little too dark. But even without the right makeup you’re a dead ringer for her, sweetheart. Hey, I’d love to get your picture to post on my Facebook—I bet a ton of my friends would think I’d actually met the real Little Bird! Would you mind?”
“Yes,” I answer bluntly. She frowns, not sure if she’s understood me correctly, so I clarify. “No photographs.”
The woman’s gaze sharpens as she studies me. “No photographs? Wait, are you, like, somebody? Somebody famous, I mean?”
She starts rummaging frantically through her bag, presumably to find her phone so she can take my photo whether I want it or not. Panic tightens my chest. This is the point where Nolan steps in—or Larry, at the very least—and makes sure the woman can’t get near me with her damn camera.
Get away from my daughter! Do you want to get hit with a lawsuit? Do you? Nolan roars beside me.
Should I run? Yell at her? What’s the Optimal response?
Nolan! What do I do?
No answer.
Shit!
She’s fumbling with the screen, and before I’m really aware of it I smack the phone out of her hands. It clatters away along the sidewalk, lost among milling feet.
“Hey! If you’ve broken my phone, you’re paying for it, honey . . .”
I’m already walking away. My heart thuds so loud I can barely hear the woman yelling and cursing at my back. Then the crowd swallows me, putting a nice thick blanket between us. Once I’m far enough away that I’m sure I’m out of sight, I choose another spot from which to view the parade, and find myself grinning. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, but it felt Optimal.
I scan the faces of the Harrow Lake locals in the procession, trying to see which one is officially playing Little Bird. And then I find her.
She struts ahead of the starving townsfolk, wearing a plum-checkered dress like Lorelei wore in her final scene, her hair in sleek blond waves to her shoulders, with those perfectly painted lips and dark, smoky eyes.
I don’t know her. But I do know the girl in the scruffy shirt next to her with a pickaxe held limply at her side. As though she feels my stare, Cora turns. She looks exactly as she normally does, except with a little dirt smeared on her cheeks and an expression that tells me she’s not thrilled to be taking part in the parade. She slips away from the procession and through the crowd to where I stand.
“I thought you were going to skip town before the parade?” she says, leaning in to be heard over the noise around us.
“Change of plan,” I reply tightly, my anger at Larry still simmering like hot bile.
“Well, I’m glad you managed to find your way here without getting lost again.” Cora raises an eyebrow. “If my mom hadn’t told me about finding you wandering in the woods the other night when you were supposed to come meet me and my friends at the lake, I might’ve been insulted. And you had Carter worried when you disappeared at the museum yesterday, but I said he’d probably bored you so much you caught the next flight back to New York.”
“Is he here?” I ask, scanning the faces around us. When I turn back to Cora, she’s wearing a knowing smirk. “What?”
“Carter will be here soon. Anyhow, I’m kinda glad I got to see you again. You remind me there really is a world outside Harrow Lake.”
I’m not so sure what kind of world she imagines when she looks at me, but I like that she doesn’t see a scratched copy of my mother. I nod toward the girl dressed as Little Bird who is now clutching at her hair in mock terror as the parade drifts forward. From the way the hair slides back on her head, I guess she’s wearing a wig.
“Who’s that?”
Cora pulls a face. “Oh, that’s Marie Conner. She just took over playing Little Bird this year.”
“Have you ever done it?” I ask Cora.
“Me? Play Little Bird?” she scoffs. “No way. Marie’s sister, Gretchen, played Little Bird for three years until she disappeared last summer. Before that it was Maisie Parks, who was last seen swimming in the lake the spring before Gretchen took over. No, I don’t think I’ll be taking on that role any time soon. It doesn’t exactly end well for anyone who . . .” Cora glances down at my dress and tries to stifle a wince.
“Are you saying girls who dress up like Little Bird have been disappearing for years, and nobody’s done anything about it?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.
Cora sighs. “Well, what would t
hey do? The police would just say that Gretchen ran away, and Maisie, well, they’d just say she drowned. But, one way or another, people have been disappearing from Harrow Lake for a long time.”
“You mean since Lorelei asked Mister Jitters to take out the other Little Birds,” I say drily. Cora shrugs.
“I can only tell you what I’ve heard. Maybe it wasn’t your mom. Maybe it was just the disruption of the movie crew coming to town that made Mister Jitters . . . mad. I mean, you heard about that camera guy who went missing during filming, right? Sure, Moss might have just gotten lost in the caves. It could be a coincidence that people here with a connection to the movie seem to get picked off one by one. And maybe it means absolutely nothing that Harrow Lake was the last place the original Little Bird was seen before she ‘moved away.’ But I don’t like coincidences, and I have no interest in catching a monster’s eye. I only do this”—she waves her pickaxe—“because we have to keep the tourists happy. We’ll all go hungry otherwise.”
Is Cora right about Lorelei disappearing here? Nolan told me he never saw her after she left to visit her hometown, but he always made it sound like this had just been a pit stop on her grand adventure. Or am I remembering wrong? Did she come here after telling Nolan she was leaving him or before? I was so little when she left and Nolan hates talking about it, so it’s gotten muddled over the years.
Don’t waste your time worrying about nonsense, comes Nolan’s voice, but I barely hear him over a sudden throbbing headache. I try to will it gone as I study the faces in the crowd surrounding us. All smiling and having fun.
“So the police really have nothing to say about those girls disappearing?”
Cora shrugs. “I guess they put out their bulletins and look through bank records or whatever, but eventually the cops just sigh and say, Do you know how hard it is to find someone who doesn’t want to be found? They stop looking. Everyone stops looking.” Cora shoots me a tight smile. “Anyway, I might not be Little Bird, but Pickaxe Villager Three will still get into trouble if someone spots me breaking character, so I’d better get back in line. Are you coming to the picnic?”