The Messenger of Magnolia Street

by River Jordan

  “Well, you orta forget it. It’s not a very good one.” Kate picks at her apron. “A woman’s not supposed to pay the rent.”

  “Well, I guess not. But maybe she was trying to pay him back.” Magnus spits again.

  “What for?”

  “Well, I don’t know, but it says right there, I know I done you wrong. It musta been something.”

  “Musta been something bad if she was going to pay the rent,” Kate says. Then she adds, “She musta been pretty desperate, if you ask me.”

  Magnus hums the song again for a moment. “It’s nothing but a song, Kate. It don’t really mean nothing.”

  “I guess not.”

  “But it’s funny how things get stuck inside of you and come out at the strangest times.” And Magnus is quiet for a while. Real quiet. Because what she is really thinking about, who she is really thinking about, is John Robert. About how she did him wrong. And about how, in her book, he did her wrong first. But now, twenty-nine years later, in the dying light of the world, things have taken on a different perspective. “Wrong is just wrong all the way around,” she says.

  And Kate adds, “Yeah, it is,” even though she doesn’t have a clue what Magnus is talking about.

  Monday, 9:40 P.M.

  The last shock wave caused a rupture in the wall between Obie’s Salon and Zadok’s Barbershop. Obie walks out of her front door and looks at the empty, dusty, dark streets. “It’s not proper day or proper night,” she says. Then she looks through Zadok’s plate glass window, which, beyond comprehension, is still in place. He is still sitting as he was, in the barber chair, slumped down, staring at the wall. Or, more correctly, he is now staring at the crack running up the wall.

  Obie opens the door and hollers at him, “Zadok!” He doesn’t even bother turning his head. And Obie thinks he has had a stroke. Or maybe is sure enough sitting up frozen dead. “Zadok!” she yells again, this time louder, with more force. But Zadok doesn’t move. She walks inside, approaches him carefully. Bends down and looks up into his face. Then she softly touches his arm and whispers, “Zadok?” with a question on her lips, and for the first time he moves, looks at her with the slightest comprehension.

  “Zadok?” Obie talks softly now, like she is talking to a child.

  “Get up, sugar,” and she takes him by the hand, “we got to go.” She helps him get up out of the chair and walks with him until they are both standing outside looking up and down the sidewalk. Obie has the compelling urge—to find people and to get them to church. She couldn’t tell you anything beyond this right now. She couldn’t give you a single recipe or piece of gossip if her life depended on it. She couldn’t trim any bangs or comb out a curl. She turns to Zadok and explains the plan. “We are gonna walk around now and see if anybody needs our help.” She pats his arm with her other hand. “And then we are going to church.” Sometimes, in the forward course of humanity, without any explanation, a person just wakes up.

  Monday, 9:55 P.M.

  Nehemiah has circled back to the place where he lost Trice. He calls her name but there is no answer. He feels along the cave walls, without understanding, searching for something he knows must be there. A place where rock and reason hold no rhyme.

  Then surprisingly a voice whispers, “I’m right here.” But Nehemiah isn’t certain whose voice he hears. “Trice?”

  “I’m right here,” the voice repeats, but it is a small voice. It is a voice that sounds so near and yet so very far away.

  Then it calls him by name. “Nehemiah?” Then there is a long pause—it is a cavernous pause. It is a breath between dimensions. And the voice adds, “Give me your hand.” And Nehemiah obeys what he cannot see. He stretches out his hand toward the voice in the dark. The air becomes colder still. So cold that Nehemiah begins to shake. He moves his light toward the sound and his light dims. “Not now!” he whispers to himself because goose bumps are rising on his flesh. Hair is standing up on the back of his neck. Something doesn’t feel right. Even in the midst of all this madness, in the middle of the darkness and chaos, there is a river of peace that he can follow. But that river is not obvious. That river is not visible to the naked eye. And the light he so much wants right now, the external light to verify his steps, doesn’t cooperate. That light grows dimmer and dimmer. He turns his helmet back and forth, searching for the substance of the voice. Searching for Trice. But the light grows dimmer, slowly fading, until it is completely gone. Now there is nothing but darkness. And a voice that continues calmly calling, “This way. Take my hand.” Nehemiah wants so very much for the voice to be Trice. Wants it so much that his arm reaches blindly forward.

  (How can I explain to you the chemistry of Nehemiah’s now? Have you ever desired something so much, with all of your beating heart, that you reach for the wrong thing? Have you ever been deceptively tricked by the imposter into believing the false thing before the true thing appeared? I know you have. I’ve been watching you. But then, your story isn’t over yet. I see time in your hourglass.)

  “I’m right here,” the voice repeats. “Right here.” It is determined.

  I will not paint the wrong picture. The wrong thing does not come uncloaked. The wrong thing comes with a hypnotic voice. A syrupy, seductive voice. One laced with sugary desire. Nehemiah takes a step forward. And another. But then he stops still in his tracks. And time moves forward as he listens, as he battles inside himself.

  If you could see through the darkness hovering over him, you would see a man with closed eyes. A man who reaches out, touches his stomach with his palm, cocks his head to the side as if he is listening to another voice. One from somewhere deep inside of him. One more familiar than breath. One that is the Creator. (Just where do you think God has been in all of this?) Then Nehemiah’s jaw clenches. And his expression changes, as he lowers his arm. An expression that says, “I don’t think so. Not today.” He takes a step back. And begins to move in the opposite direction. His back is against the cave wall, his eyes blind to everything but a treasure he is seeking. And in that treasure, time will still be, he tells himself. And Trice will be well.

  “Over here,” the voice repeats. It grows more forceful, slides its way along the rocks. And now, the voice is suddenly just at his ear. At his ear. Breathing heavy. “Don’t you want me? Take me, I’m right here.” The air has become frigid. And with every step Nehemiah takes, it becomes colder still. And more stale. With every determined step he takes, the breathing becomes less seductive and more voracious. Until its anger and frustration can no longer be hidden. Until the veil is lifted with a vengeance. The voice no longer whispers “follow”; it whispers “fear.” The voice paints the past full of pain and regret. Paints the future so hopeless, so lost, it’s as black as the hole it’s hiding in. It shoots arrow words with one aim: to stop a man in his path. To call him back. Turn him around. It grows and shifts shape in the dark. Becomes a tangible presence panting dark breaths of sickness and disease. Words of death and destruction.

  But Nehemiah is walking forward in the total blackness. Ignoring temptation. Ignoring torment. Continuing on his journey. One single, solitary step at a time. Just like you are.

  Monday, 10:36 P.M.

  Magnus is pacing the ground just inside the entrance of the cave. She turns suddenly and walks as far back as she can with squinting eyes. “I think I heard Trice.” Magnus absently scratches her backside.

  “Me too.” Kate walks a little deeper into the solid blackness. “Do you think our ears are playing tricks?”

  “No.” Magnus listens again for a moment, “I think our minds are.”

  “I was wishing we could get on out of here.” Kate throws her hands up over her head. “Just get up and go on home. All of us.”

  Magnus comes up behind Kate, puts an arm over her shoulder. “I think, right now, Kate,” She turns her around where she can look at the shadow of her face, the whites of her eyes, “I think that we are better trying to remember what was while there is still some time for remembering.�
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  Kate nods. And the two of them turn their hearts and heads toward the long, dusty road of their past. They start on the day at the oak tree.

  This is what they see.

  One old friend talking to another, although they are only thirty-something. One is wise but not so worldly. And the other is in a bad situation. And afraid. And alone. And there beneath the Shibboleth oak tree, the same tree that memorizes all the stories of its people, a plan is made. It is a plan of saving grace. It is a plan that is brought forth from both desperation and desire. And the two young old friends do the best they can to make some semblance of a life plan that they think will stand the test of time. Now they are sitting, graying, side-by-side and holding hands, just as they were so many years ago. And yet years ago was just a yesterday away. They are remembering. Go ahead, I whisper, tell yourselves the story. And they do. They skip the bus ride that Magnus took. They skip her year away. The one when she’d been called, or so they’d told everyone in town, to care for a distant dying aunt. That part they leave in the dirt of their remembering, like a lonely spot they skip over. A treacherous, lonely road for Magnus, a floor-pacing time for Kate. Caught in the months of the in-between. Both of them had said their prayers those long days and nights. They had said separate prayers, but unknowingly they were the same. They prayed for a healthy baby. Specifically, they prayed for a girl. And surprisingly, one with wings. They didn’t know this at the time. Didn’t know why they prayed that way, but now, now when they look at her, they realize that sometimes Trice’s feet don’t quite touch the ground. But this is the part that they skip over.

  This is what they are remembering now. Kate is sitting on her bench at her wishing well. She is waiting and hoping. She is hoping that this part of the plan will go the way they had talked about. She is young and excited. A baby has been born. And it’s meant to be hers to have and hold from this day forward. But there is no sign of Magnus. She is late. And Kate is getting nervous. She has begun to wring her hands a little. She has even pulled a coin out and dropped it in the well, making another wish. But it’s really the same wish over and over again that she is making. Kate wants a baby. Kate wants a baby girl who will stand on a stool in the kitchen someday and make biscuits with her. Will sift the flour with the sifter, making little awkward cranking turns into the biscuit bowl. Will help her water flowers and learn their names one by one. Names like peony and dahlia, four o’clock and buttercup. One with silky, shiny hair for her to brush for church. One who will dress and be dainty in the ways Kate never was.

  And from the tree line steps Magnus, worn, tired, with just a hint of bitter. But the bitter is only a weed now in the garden of her life. In due time, it will grow into a briar patch (much like the ones that Cassie Getty is navigating even now), and when that happens more and more each year, the way to Magnus, into her heart and life, will become so overgrown that only her cats will find their way to her unafraid. With the exception of one. One who does everything with a mind that seems to be elsewhere. One with wildly curly hair. One who loves to run barefoot even now. And could climb trees almost as fast as Nehemiah and faster than Billy ever could.

  And it is this one now whom they see again as she once was. Brand new. Naked as the day she was born. Wrapped in the tiniest blanket. And Magnus, sure enough to the plan of saving grace, steps from the edge of the woods and walks toward Kate, placing the small bundle in her waiting arms. And she puts out her hand, one last time, toward the soundless child, but then quickly pulls it back and is gone, without a word of hello or good-bye. And now, in their remembering they know, their simple answer contained a poison. The unforeseen human element, as yet unknown. How were they to tell that this same Magnus, confused and all alone, would love this child with all her passion? And sit and watch her grow from two arm’s lengths away. Full of regret at what could have been. And what would not be.

  And yet Kate, sitting there that day, sitting with Magnus’s pain in her arms, wept tears of joy. She did. It had been her greatest wish. Dropped right there down that well, her most passionate plea. “Breathe life into this dry womb,” she’d cried. “Give me a child!” And her child had come, but on tiny, hidden strings. Ones that felt so tenuous that she had always felt that at any moment they might snap and she would lose the thing that she loved most. Her wish come true, her baby found.

  And so a new life had stepped into Shibboleth, not trailing circumstance. Or disgrace. But wonder. And light. And love. And this life had walked the streets fearlessly. Covered by angels. Protected somehow by the city, which cherished its wish-come-true baby. And the strange woman on Magnolia growing old before her time with her cats and unkempt yard, growing stranger by the day. But this made no matter to the child, who drew nearer and dearer with each year. No matter at all. She fed the cats when she was five. Hung on the porch railing while Magnus rocked. Was so very unmoved by Magnus. By her angry approach to life. So she visited. And with each visit brought Magnus back a piece of her heart. Until one day she could almost be made whole. Almost. That’s the day when Trice moved in.

  Trice had been watching Magnus, had sensed something. And the day came that Trice had known what she had felt for years. And she summed it up like this. That love had no boundaries. That a person could have more than one mother and not lose anything in that translation. But she had never said a word.

  And right now, Kate and Magnus are wondering about what I’ve already told you. They are wondering if Trice knew. They are beyond their game of tug-o’-war. Beyond their fear of losing her to one another. They only want to see her face again. Even, they silently tell themselves, even if it is only one last time.

  Monday, 10:58 P.M.

  Billy and Blister are making their way into the bowels of Hell’s Jungle. Billy is wondering why they didn’t follow Nehemiah. Why he didn’t call to them. Why they didn’t all go together. He is wondering, at the very least, why his brother would leave him without saying something, but right now all the wondering in the world will not change the fact that he is standing beneath the mammoth twisted shapes of rock and shadow. And it is not the shadows but Blister’s twitchy behavior that has Billy nervous.

  “What is it you see, Blister?” Billy turns his light to follow the trail of Blister’s last jumpy reaction.

  “I don’t know.” It’s a shaky voice and getting shakier by the moment.

  “So what is it that you think you see?” Oh, Billy is a smart man. He really is. In the way of alphabets and simple math. No convoluted equations.

  Blister turns and looks directly at him in spite of the light in his eyes, so that Billy can see his one clear pupil dilate to a pinpoint. “I think I see me.”

  “You’re right here with me, Blister.”

  “No, not me now.” Blister looks back and forth between the rocks. “Me from the past.” His voice drops down lower and years farther away. “Me from a long time ago.”

  Billy is quiet for a while. He is taking in the words and following them along their path. He is deciding where Blister is. In his mind. He knows that they’ve all been shifting, losing, and regaining mental ground. Memories come and gone. Good sense goes missing and then returns again. But not for long.

  “Why did you bring me down here?” Billy puts his hand on Blister’s shoulder. He jumps like a surprised cat.

  Blister doesn’t answer. Not at first anyway. Then he begins to speak. Billy thinks it’s a riddle with no rhyme or reason.

  “This is where something got started. A long, long time ago. And this is where something is supposed to end.”

  Billy doesn’t like riddles. He wishes Trice were here. It’s her specialty. She carries riddles around in her head forever. One time for three years. But she figured it out. “Trice, Trice,” he says out loud, “where are you when I need you?” And there rises up a longing in Billy to see his fruity-tooty friend. That’s what he called her in grade school, Fruity-tooty Trice. He had made it up to try to make her mad, but it didn’t work. She just smiled at him li
ke the joke was on him.

  The ground rocks, and an amazing wind drives through the cave. It makes a music no one wants to hear. It blows so hard there is a sound of whistles and voices, and John Robert puts his hands over his ears and closes his eyes. Billy shines his helmet around the cave, bends his knees so that he doesn’t lose his footing. John Robert falls to the ground and stays there, the wind circling over his head like the turkey buzzard from the tree.

  “Leave me alone,” he screams. But Billy reaches out and with one strong arm pulls him to his feet. The wind stops.

  “Get up, Blister.” His jaw has a determined new look to it. “Let’s get this thing done.” He points back to the empty chamber, through the formations of rock that water has left behind. “Let’s get what you came down here for, and get to Nehemiah and Trice.”

  “Trice is here?” Blister wipes his wet mouth with the back of his hand.

  “You knew that, Blister.” Billy shakes him a little under his hand. Not roughly but the way a mother would wake a child. He wants desperately for Blister to snap out of it. He wants to get out of the wake of his walking dream. Wants to get to his brother. He has remembered the map. He has seen that piece of paper that he ignored so well for years. He wasn’t a make-believe kind of boy. Didn’t grow into a make-believe kind of man. But now he has seen it again in his mind. Just as if it were held before his eyes and not in his pocket. “Trice is why you came in here in the first place, remember?”

  Blister just shakes his head. He can’t remember but one thing: the shadow circling between the rocks, weaving in and out of the past and the present. The one that is calling him to finish what he came to do. To die. Once and for all.

  “I am very, very afraid,” Blister says with trembling lips.

  “I know where they are,” Billy says. He doesn’t understand Blister’s fear. Doesn’t understand what he’s running from but can’t outrun. “I know where they are, Blister, and I need to get there.” Need is what Billy says but want is the better word. He’s known now for some time, just like he did that morning at the house, that it would take Nehemiah and Trice together, crucial pieces of the puzzle linked together, to save them from whatever this hole in time and space was. “If they don’t find each other, we really won’t make it out of here alive.” This Billy says aloud, but he is really talking to himself.