Black Bird of the Gallows

by Meg Kassel

  The gravity of his words drops on me like bricks.

  Nothing less than my soul…

  “That’s not going to happen,” I breathe.

  He shakes his head, lips twisted in contempt. “You’re right. I’m already damned. Not going to make it worse by forfeiting my humanity. Besides that, it can’t happen. No one’s ever broken a curse. Or transferred it.” He taps the side of his head. “Rafette’s getting a little scrambled after being around for nearly a thousand years.”

  I swallow through a tight throat, trying to swallow my unease. Reece may not believe Rafette could alter their curses, but the Beekeeper seemed very confident that he could. The parking lot is packed now, but the curious stares and fizzy voices barely register. Twenty minutes ago, I was breaking out in hives just thinking about walking into school with Reece. How trivial those worries are now. “What will happen to Corey?”

  “He was stung,” Reece says. He slings an arm over my shoulders and nudges me toward the entrance.

  “I saw.” I adjust to the warmth and feel of his muscled arm, looped so naturally up there. For once, I’m the perfect height for something. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  “Probably the same thing that happens to everyone who is stung.” Reece nods to a few guys from the hockey team, standing by their cars, gaping at him with me. “I advise staying far away from him.”

  19- the announcement

  Corey Anderson got a nosebleed in Geometry class. I was there. I saw it. He went to the nurse. The nosebleed stopped. He came back to class. All was good until PE two periods later, when he slammed a volleyball into Steve Collier’s face because of a bad serve. It went downhill from there. He received a two-day suspension.

  That volleyball part I hear secondhand from Deno. At lunch. The meatball I’m swallowing changes its mind halfway down my throat and tries to come back up.

  Deno thumps my back. “What’s with you lately? I had no idea you had such a personal interest in Corey Anderson’s attendance.”

  “I don’t,” I choke out. “I’m having trouble swallowing today.”

  “Distracted much?” Lacey raises a brow and grins at me. “New boyfriends will do that.” She glances over her shoulder at Reece, who is sitting with the hockey guys at their table. He agreed—reluctantly—for us to sit at our respective tables. No force on this Earth could get me to sit over there, and the thought of trying to integrate him into my table made me feel vaguely ill.

  I grin, pleasantly disturbed by the terms “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” and baffled by how the act of walking into school with a boy’s arm around you automatically bestowed the official title.

  Deno shoots me a look. “It’s still surprising.”

  “I know.” I don’t pretend to misunderstand him. Everyone is talking about the hot new hockey guy and a weird band girl getting together. We are not a logical pairing. Kiera Shaw laughs with her friends as if nothing is different. She hasn’t looked at me once, thankfully. She hasn’t acknowledged Reece, either, even though he’s still sitting just a bunch of seats down from her. Obviously, she’s not going to compete for his attention with someone like me, who she considers far beneath herself.

  Lacey leans forward and lowers her voice. “Oh! They’re talking about you now, Angie.”

  The three of us fall into silence. My breathing goes shallow as I strain to eavesdrop on Reece’s conversation at the table behind Lacey.

  “You’re seriously with Angie Dovage when you could have Kiera Shaw?” Mike Gordon, another hockey player, an asshole one, doesn’t care who hears his conversation. “I don’t get it. Kiera was all about you.”

  “Whatever, dude.” Reece’s reply is muddled by whatever he’s chewing. “Have you ever actually looked at Angie? She’s beautiful. Talented. And really nice.”

  Quiet. “Oh, Angie,” Lacey twitters. “I wouldn’t look if I were you.”

  I’m not. My gaze is firmly fixed on my spaghetti, but I can hear the scrape of metal chairs shifting on concrete floors, and I can feel the curious eyes on me. My cheeks start to burn. Okay, I’m not a fan of blatant objectification, but the lunchroom is not the place for deep, meaningful talk with this particular subset of the hockey team.

  The chairs squeak back around, followed by grunts of agreement.

  Wow. Seriously?

  “Besides,” Reece continues, quietly. “Kiera yells. A lot.”

  “Kiera does yell,” Mike says, loud enough for Kiera to hear. “That’s true. But a band geek, Reece? Really?”

  “Yeah, really,” Reece says. “She’s a killer performer.”

  Deno shoves his turquoise glasses up his nose. “Where’s he going with this?”

  I’m tense as a rod, wondering the same thing. He totally wouldn’t out me. He wouldn’t.

  The loudspeaker cuts off whatever Reece might have said next with a loud crackle. The principal’s voice fills the cafeteria. “Students are to immediately report to their homerooms. Under no circumstances are staff or students to leave the building. I repeat, students report to your homerooms…”

  This is not Principal Henderson’s usual bored drawl. Her voice squeaks like a sneaker on the gym floor. I look up sharply at Reece. He shrugs back at me, then yawns.

  No one else seems to share his blasé attitude. Kids shove a few last bites into their mouths, gather up their things, and make for the exits. There’s a sense of curiosity, of worry. Some excitement. My harbinger boyfriend is the only one bored by the whole thing. Reece finds me in the packed hallway. His hand curls around mine. “Maybe it’s just a drill.”

  “You know it’s not.”

  He pulls in a deep breath, nostrils wide. “Nothing to worry about here.”

  “Really? You can just…smell that?” I wrinkle my nose.

  “Yup. Hey, you’re the one who wanted no secrets.”

  “That’s right, I did,” I say. “Speaking of which, what were you going to say to those guys at your lunch table about me being a good performer?”

  “What?”

  I suppress a sigh. “You were talking to the hockey guys about me before Henderson’s announcement. It sounded like you were going to tell them about my…part-time job.”

  “I wouldn’t do that.”

  My stomach jumps. “Thank you. It’s not for you to tell.”

  “No, it’s for you.” He dips his head, swipes hair from his eyes. “If you don’t free yourself of that secret, you’ll always regret it.”

  “Oh yeah?” I turn narrow eyes up to his. “Adding clairvoyance to your skill set?”

  “No,” he chuckles. “I’ve been around a while, Angie. I’ve seen a lot of regret—felt a lot of it, myself. It’s the kind of thing that will eat holes through you. You should show these kids the true you.”

  “It’s my decision.”

  We stop in front of my homeroom, lean against the lockers. He takes my hands in his and leans in close.

  “Agreed. But at this point the only one judging you by your mother’s flaws is you.” He glances at the thinning hallway crowd. “Do you have your cell on?”

  I nod. “Text me if you hear anything.”

  “Okay. See you in a bit.” Reece’s homeroom is two doors down. He drops a kiss to my forehead and breaks away. I file into my homeroom last as Mr. Dougherty closes the door behind me and locks it. He motions for everyone to sit, and we do, waiting with fresh alarm to hear what’s going on.

  Before our teacher begins, Anne Brighton springs from her seat. She holds her phone aloft and lets out a panicky cry. “My dad just texted that there’s some guy at the college shooting people!”

  20- the preshow

  Anne’s huge blue eyes just about bug out of her head. “My parents want to pick me up now.”

  “No one’s leaving.” Mr. Dougherty dabs a handkerchief over his forehead. “Everyone stay calm. This is not happening inside the school, but a block away. We’re to stay right here and keep the door locked until the police say it’s safe.”

>   Half the room erupts. Even the tough guys go high-pitched. The other half are hunched over the phones we’re not supposed to have in school. Poor Mr. Dougherty tries to settle everyone, but he’s got to be the most high-strung chemistry teacher ever. On our best behavior, we make him nervous. I don’t know how he’ll survive being locked in a room full of panicked students.

  I stay in my seat and text Reece. Shooter at the college parking lot? Your sister there?

  His response is immediate. Yes.

  Is she safe?

  Depends.

  What kind of answer is that? She’s either safe or she’s not.

  Is this it? I text. Is this THE catastrophe?

  So eager to be rid of me? ;-)

  I let out an annoyed sigh. Is it????

  He responds, No.

  The pop-pop-pop of gunshots somewhere outside prompts a few of my dimmer classmates to rush toward the window and start yanking up the shades. Mr. Dougherty leaps for them, face red. “Get away from that window!” he bellows. “In your seats and quiet. Now.”

  Amazingly, everyone listens. Seats are filled. The room goes silent. Honestly, it doesn’t sound like the gunfire is a block away. It sounds like it’s right outside.

  We can hear the unintelligible garble of police speaking into megaphones. The blare of sirens. Then, the lights go out.

  Whimpers. A few whispering prayers. Suddenly, this is real. This is happening and I’m scared. We all are.

  A thought slams into me with the force of a bullet—if I die here today, Reece would be right.

  I would regret hiding behind Sparo. I would regret hiding my music.

  My dad sends me a frantic text, and I respond that I’m okay, safe in a locked classroom and this is all happening outside, away from us. Deno and Lacey, in other homerooms, send quick texts. They’re scared, too.

  For the first time, I notice the details of my homeroom. The creamed-corn walls. Blue smeared whiteboard. Sun-bleached periodic table of the elements, peeling off the wall behind Dougherty’s desk. I don’t want these things to be the final images I see.

  My heart pounds through my entire body. My phone is locked in my sweaty grip, but my hands are shaking too hard to text. What would I say, anyway? Should I tell my dad again that I love him? No, that would only make him worry more.

  Don’t worry, Reece texts. No one in this school is going to die today.

  I believe him—of anyone, I guess he’d know this—but I still can’t unbend my fingers enough to text back. The reality of it all rushes at me. Disaster. Catastrophic event. This thing is coming, even though it seems impossible.

  Suddenly, noises erupt outside. I wrap my arms over my head and squeeze my eyes shut. Glass shatters somewhere, followed by a screaming car alarm. Orders are shouted. Sirens wail. A man yells. It’s a horrible, wrenching sound that makes my stomach twist.

  The gunfire stops.

  My phone vibrates.

  Reece texts: Are you holding up ok?

  I nod numbly at the phone, then remember I have to type. My fingers are stiff and shaking, but I manage: Yes. You?

  There’s a pause, then, So fun to be trapped in a room with twenty frightened kids.

  I automatically recoil at the words. Are you feeding off this?

  Course not. Everyone’s alive here.

  I pause, bite my lip. Are you worried about dying?

  I stopped worrying about that years ago.

  Of course he has. This is a breeze for him. Probably nothing can scare him.

  I peek up to see Aidan Moller unfolding off his desk. His face is inches from the face of his cell phone. “My dad’s on the police scanner. They said the police shot and killed the shooter.” His voice cracks through the middle of it. “It’s over.”

  More than half the room is crying to varying degrees, but it’s sobs of relief now. I vaguely wonder why I’m not crying. Have I seen so many bad things in my life that I’m impervious to this kind of thing? No, I’ve never been through a gunfight. It was Reece’s calm assurance that no one in the school would die today. I believed him.

  Mr. Dougherty moves to the window and peeks around the window shade. “Yes, it appears to be very much over—no!” he says when a few students move toward the window. “There’s nothing to see. Stay in your seats until the police come and escort us out.”

  No one argues with Mr. Dougherty. Cell phones light up, including Mr. Dougherty’s. I text my dad and assure him I’m fine.

  We get word that one bystander was killed. Two more people are on their way to the hospital, but are likely to make it.

  Reece texts me. U hear the news?

  Yes. Brooke okay?

  Yup, he replies.

  I’m not crying. Is something wrong with me?

  There’s a pause before he responds. You’re the opposite of wrong. But you also know who caused this.

  The Beekeeper?

  Yes. And this was only the preshow.

  I respond, Huh?

  Sick knots of dread clench my stomach as his words scroll down my screen.

  Today was nothing. A tiny sample of what’s to come.

  21- the connection

  School is closed Friday, the day after the shooting, and so is The Strip Mall. It’s a good thing, since my dad isn’t letting me out of his sight. We spend Friday and Saturday hanging out on the couch, playing video games, eating ice cream straight from the container—yes, Dad decided that life was too short to live without dairy after the awful events at school—and watching the news. The ice cream is glorious. The news is not.

  The shooter was a twenty-three-year-old guy with no previous problems with the law. The network flashes his picture on the screen every five seconds and really, you couldn’t find a more everyday-looking guy. I mean, he really did not look like a psycho. He wasn’t from Cadence, but from a rural town farther east in Appalachia. The shooter’s red-faced parents cry to the reporter that their boy was a good boy. They never saw this coming. And no, they didn’t know about any guns. They don’t know why their son tried to kill all those people. None of the smart people on the news know why, either.

  The sad thing is, there is no why. The shooter probably was a good boy before he was stung.

  Dad shakes his head, drilling his spoon into a pint of rock-hard mint chip. “I don’t get what makes people do these things,” he says. “I’m just so glad you’re safe.”

  The number of times he has told me how glad he is I’m safe this weekend is in the double digits. I pat his arm. “Me, too.”

  I’d been trying to find the right time to bring up a possible temporary exit from Cadence. To get myself and Dad out of town, in case that really bad thing happens. With the recent violence, now seems to be a good time to try. “Hey, Dad, what do you think of taking a trip?”

  “Hmm.” He nods. “I could see about taking some time off in April. When’s your break?”

  “I was thinking like, next week? We could check out a few of the colleges I applied to. In Philadelphia and New York? We could make a road trip of it.”

  “Can’t do it. I’m closing a huge sale of equipment to the hospital and will be in Pittsburgh part of the week to train the techs on it.” His brows knit. “Besides, you can’t miss school for a road trip. Don’t you have midterms coming up?”

  “Right. Okay. Just a thought, with all the stuff that’s been going on around here, I thought…”

  He shakes his head. “You’re not missing school. I understand what happened scared you, but Cadence is still a safe place, Angie.”

  Nope. He’s not biting. A trill of panic traces up my spine. I’m not getting out of Cadence, but my dad will be in Pittsburgh. That’s something. I could get really hysterical, tell him a catastrophe’s coming and we’re going to die, but I suspect all that would do is make my dad cancel his appointments in Pittsburgh and stay home with me. I’d rather he get out of here and be safe.

  “You know, they’re going to be testing the water,” he says. “Folks think it’s
contaminated with heavy metals from all the mining back in the day.”

  I study him from the corners of my eyes. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t see how mining from sixty years ago is suddenly affecting us now, but hey, I’m not a scientist.” He nods toward the kitchen. “There’re three cases of bottled water in the pantry. Use that for drinking and brushing your teeth until all this is figured out.”

  “Okay, but I seriously doubt Lake Serenity is contaminated. They test it all the time,” I say. “The dam has been there for decades, so the water is nowhere near the old mines.”

  He shrugs. “What else could it be? Decent people don’t turn homicidal for no reason. Don’t worry. I’ve got us covered if it’s the water. We’re getting a new water filter installed next week.” His eyes go bright with excitement. “You should have seen the demo of this thing. It turned urine into drinkable water—”

  I hold up a hand. “I’m not drinking my own urine.”

  “No, no, of course not. But you could, if you had to. They use a reverse osmosis filtration…”

  I stop listening there. It’s unfortunate my dad is buying the bogus theory about the water. I’m not surprised. He doesn’t hide the fact that anything but a logical, scientific explanation is pure hooey. Yes, hooey is the technical term for all things whimsical. He says my mom cured him of hooey and whimsy.

  The doorbell rings. It plays this bombastic little tune that must be audible to the whole neighborhood.

  “That would be Reece,” I say.

  “Does he have to come over tonight? I was going to order a pizza.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Pizza? That’s so tempting. “I asked you earlier if it was okay, and you said yes. You should have stated your objection then.”

  When he just frowns at me, I lean over and kiss his cheek. “You said yes. I’m going to let him in before he rings that doorbell again and wakes up every napping infant in a five mile radius.”

  Dad grumbles but doesn’t stop me. Roger leads the way to the door, tail wagging as if he knows who it is. I follow the dog down the hall, suddenly a little self-conscious. I should have changed. I’m barefoot in purple leggings and a huge, bleach-spattered sweatshirt with the neckline cut out. I tug up the frayed neck, but it slips right back down over my left shoulder.