Zavion reached into his pocket and pulled out the marble—
chapter 58
HENRY
Henry gasped.
Wayne.
There was Wayne.
There was the mountain.
There was the marble.
The marble.
The flash of it between Henry’s and Wayne’s hands. The space lit up by the flash. The space between Henry and Wayne.
The flashing, pulsing, breathing space.
chapter 59
ZAVION
Zavion turned to Henry.
He knew instantly.
Here was the boy who had sent him the marble. In a million years Zavion wouldn’t have guessed that he would meet that boy—Henry—here. How far was Vermont? How many miles? Tree after tree after tree after tree, and all that highway, it was all compressed into this small space. The small, round space between one hand dropping a marble into another.
chapter 60
HENRY
“Do you want it?” said Zavion. He extended his hand to Henry.
Osprey leaned back into Henry’s chest and looked up at him.
“It’s a magic, isn’t it?” she said. “It’s the magic.”
Zavion put the marble in Henry’s hand. Henry let it roll back and forth on his palm. Tiger bowed his head and poked his beak at it. Henry couldn’t believe it. He thought maybe he should feel excited to find it again, but a river of sadness rushed through him. An ocean. Wave after wave after wave.
“Where did you get this?” he asked. He wanted to be absolutely sure.
“I got some clothes from the Salvation Army,” said Zavion. “The marble was in the pocket of a pair of blue jeans. These jeans, actually.”
Henry scrutinized the jeans. A small rip at the knee. One cut belt loop. His old jeans.
“These…are your…jeans, aren’t they?” said Zavion.
“Is there a hole in the right pocket?”
Zavion put his hand in the pocket. “A hole! Yes! The money must have fallen out—”
“Those are mine,” said Henry, but he could tell that Zavion didn’t need confirmation.
“Wow. So this is your marble?”
“Yup.” Henry ran a finger from Tiger’s head all the way to his tail. He missed Brae again. “Mine and Wayne’s.” He missed Wayne too.
“Who’s Wayne?”
“My son,” said Jake. Henry turned to look at Jake. He was staring at the marble.
“Henry’s not—” began Zavion. Henry turned back to him. “You’re not—”
“Henry’s not my son,” said Jake quietly. “Wayne is my son—was my son….” He trailed off.
“We traded the marble back and forth. For good luck.” Henry sighed. “I just—I wanted—but then I didn’t think it had any luck in it anymore. So I stole it—I put it in my pocket—and then it ended up down here—” Henry uncurled his fingers and held the marble out to Zavion. “Here—”
“But this isn’t mine,” said Zavion. “Don’t you want to keep it?”
“No—well, maybe—” Henry struggled. “I don’t know—I don’t think I will ever have any good luck again anyway—” All he had wanted was to find the marble, he thought he would feel better, and maybe even hopeful when he did, and now he was miserable.
Zavion extended his arm, but instead of taking the marble, he grasped Henry’s hand like he was going to shake it. The marble sat between their palms.
chapter 61
ZAVION
“Ben?” said Jake.
“Yes?”
Zavion liked hearing that. Yes. The word yes coming out of Papa’s mouth. He watched Papa wipe up some more of the spilled paint. Papa’s face was turned toward the floor, but Zavion knew those eyes on the top of his head were looking right at Jake.
“You’re a painter. A good one.” Jake gestured to the freshly painted wall. “I’m not. Annie and I need our house painted. We’re in need of a change.” He paused. “And here’s the other thing. I need to repay you.”
“I don’t understand.” Papa looked up.
Jake spoke quietly. “You let me not be there. You might not even know it, and I don’t even know if I can explain it. But for a little while, you let me be here. For that I will always be grateful.”
Papa stood up. He walked over to Zavion, who silently handed him the marble.
“Let me let you not be here. Let me let you be there for a little while,” said Jake.
Papa closed his hand around the marble. He climbed the ladder. He held the marble up to the wall, like it was the moon, or a planet. He was silent for a moment before he spoke.
“You think from way up there, high in the sky, the hurricane seemed so vicious? Seems like from that perspective it could have looked like a gray sky, a big wind or two, and a few heavy drops of rain, nothing much else.” He took a deep breath. “Being right inside it, though—sweet Jesus—it made me believe in gods, or monsters. I keep seeing the walls of the house breaking apart around us”—he looked at Zavion—“me jumping and watching you jump behind me. I keep seeing you falling off the door. I keep feeling my hand slip, trying to find you in that water. Trying to get you onto the door.” He tossed the marble into the air and caught it again. “Those roof shingles—” He opened his hand, the marble balanced in the center of his palm. “I can’t seem to step any farther away than right smack in the middle of that damn hurricane.” He turned to Jake. Even through his own sticky eyes, Zavion could see tears welling up in Papa’s. “I owe you an apology for what I said before.”
“No need,” said Jake.
“Well, I am sorry,” said Papa. “And maybe you’re right.”
Zavion opened his mouth but then promptly closed it again. The best he could do was be quiet.
But quiet was not Ms. Cyn’s idea of best.
“Sounds like a good offer, Ben,” she said as she knitted. “You need the work. I know you do.”
“Jake’s right too,” said Henry. “About being a bad painter? Believe him. He isn’t good at it.” He turned to Jake. “Remember trying to help Wayne and me with that tree house? You painted more leaves onto the walls than were on the tree.” He turned back to Papa. “Jake needs you. For the good of his house, you need to come.”
Zavion held his breath. Papa was silent and still for a moment. Then he looked at Zavion and slowly nodded. “Okay,” he said, tossing the marble to Jake. “Okay, we’ll come.”
Yes, thought Zavion.
marble journey part V
JAKE
As Jake drove the truck up Highway 10, he thought about faith.
Faith.
At Jake’s suggestion, Annie had contacted Margarita and was already learning Spanish. She told Jake that when she confessed to Margarita that she was afraid she might be too old to learn anything new, Margarita had said no one was too old to learn. She had said, Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
Only she had said it in Spanish.
La fe es el pájaro que siente la luz cuando el amanecer todavía está oscuro.
Fe.
Faith.
Fe.
Jake couldn’t get the word out of his head.
It sounded like a musical note.
Sometimes a word could ring in the air like a bell.
Like a warning.
Like a celebration.
Like the marking of time.
The minutes ticked by as they drove up the highway. Henry sat by the window, his forehead pressed against the glass. Zavion sat next to Jake, asleep on his shoulder. Ben lay in the bed in the back of the cab.
The smell of cinnamon, peanut butter, and chocolate wafted through the cab of the truck, four slices of Cora’s cake carefully wrapped for their journey. Jake couldn’t believe their luck, not that he believed in luck.
Meeting all these people.
Making all these friends.
Henry finding the marble.
Maybe it wasn’t luck.
Maybe it w
as faith.
A word like that reverberated. It didn’t care if there was a fence or a wall or sixteen hundred miles of sadness between one pair of ears and another, it slipped inside any old way it could.
And so the word became a bridge.
A place to meet.
A place to connect.
Kind of like passing a marble back and forth, Jake thought.
He patted his shirt pocket, where the marble sat just outside his heart.
chapter 62
HENRY
Henry watched Jake hold the marble like it was the very world itself. Then Jake closed his hand around it and held it to his chest.
“I knew you took this from Wayne’s casket.”
“You did?”
“Yup. I can’t explain why. But I just knew. Couldn’t blame you.”
“I’m—”
“Nah. Don’t apologize. I mean it. No reason for one more thing to be buried in the ground.”
“Jake, I don’t know why I took it. I just—I wanted—”
Jake held up his hand. “No need, Henry.” He held the marble against his heart for a moment and then opened up his hand. “You want it?”
Henry pulled his shoulders up to his ears and then dropped them.
He didn’t know if he wanted the marble or not.
chapter 63
ZAVION
Zavion woke up in North Carolina and kept his eyes open all the way to New York. The highway up north looked almost the same as the Louisiana highway, especially at night. It stretched out in front of the truck for miles, gray and black and hard. But there were hills on either side of it, and in the faint dusky light, they looked like little countries to Zavion, one after the other rising up out of the earth, and the occasional tall tree looming high above the hills like a flag.
Zavion imagined he was trekking up and over each of the hills, leaving one country and entering another.
chapter 64
HENRY
It was cleaner along the edge of the highway here. Henry noticed that as he watched the yellow line whiz by. In Louisiana, there had been a steady stream of garbage. Here, he saw one lone black plastic bag, ripped, its insides spilling out along the shoulder of the road. And a dead raccoon. Henry wondered if the raccoon had broken open the bag.
The yellow line rushed by. Mile markers came and went. Each of the eighteen wheels of the truck turned like a marble. Over and over and over as Jake drove north.
Henry felt like an elastic band had been fully stretched, and it was now snapping him back home.
chapter 65
ZAVION
Right before they left, Ms. Cyn had given him a gift.
—
Zavion untied the string on the wrapping. A scarf. Zavion unfolded it. The scarf. He looked at all the pieces Ms. Cyn had added to it. One for each person he had come to know in this house. Tavius, Enzo, Skeet, and Osprey. There was even a piece of Cora’s potholder, Pierre’s cap, and the logo from Luna’s grocery bag.
“I put something in there too,” said Henry. “See the corner of my football shirt?”
“Almost had to tackle him to get it,” said Ms. Cyn.
“And I almost had to tackle her back. You have enough of my stuff,” said Henry. “My jeans, my marble—shoot, what else do you want?”
Henry was right. Zavion couldn’t imagine wearing any other jeans.
“This one’s mine,” Ms. Cyn said. She pointed to a square of cloth that had a bird right in the center of it. It looked familiar.
“The banner!” Zavion suddenly remembered seeing it the first day he was here. The banner with the boy sitting under the tree and the book turning into a bird. The gratitude banner. It felt like a long time ago. “The banner is yours?”
Ms. Cyn nodded. “It’s the only thing I brought from New Orleans,” she said. “It’s the only thing I was able to take from my house. Skeet made it for me.”
Zavion looked up on the wall. The banner was there, but with a small square missing.
—
Zavion pulled the scarf tighter around his neck. It was colder up north.
chapter 66
HENRY
Henry had done one thing before leaving for Vermont.
—
Diana greeted them at the door. Parrots were in cages everywhere—on tables, under tables, on chairs, on stairs, in hallways.
“Incredible, right?” Diana said.
“These are only a fraction of the birds that are missing.” A man walked into the room with another woman.
“Lee is my son,” said Diana. “And this is Dr. Burke. These are the boys I was telling you about. Zavion and Henry.”
“I still can’t believe you stowed away in our van,” said Lee, patting Zavion on the shoulder. “Outstanding work.” He shook Henry’s hand. “And you—” he said. “Outstanding work too.”
“Thank you,” said Henry.
“You sure you don’t want to stay and work with us?”
Henry hadn’t been sure. Not at all.
“Lee is right, you know,” said Dr. Burke. “In fact, these are only a fraction of a fraction of the pets that are missing.”
Dogs flashed through Henry’s mind.
Cats too.
One cat.
“I wish I could find them all,” he said. He gripped the handle of Tiger’s cage. “But what do I do with Tiger now?”
Henry opened the cage and sat at the kitchen table with Tiger on his shoulder and tried to answer all of Diana’s questions. He tried to tell the whole story. He was pretty sure he hadn’t left anything out. When he was finished, he listened to other parrots around him.
Words and bits of phrases.
Hello.
Who is it?
Come and get it!
It’s about time.
Hello. Where were you? Hello.
Come back.
Hello. Hello. Hello.
When he was done listening to the parrots speak, Henry realized he had one more thing to add to their stories. “My friend—his cat—he had a cat,” he said. “His name is Tiger too. He’s lost—the other Tiger. Please—find this Tiger’s family. I think they’re alive. And if they’re not—I know a little girl who would love to take Tiger home.”
—
While Henry slept in the truck, he dreamed of “This Little Light of Mine” sang by a chorus of birds.
chapter 67
ZAVION
Zavion must have fallen asleep again. As he stretched his arms over his head, he saw the edges of the hills in focus now. In the climbing light of the sun, he could see they were taller here.
“Are we almost there?” he whispered to Jake.
“Yup—” Henry’s eyes weren’t even open.
“Morning, boys,” said Jake.
“Is it morning already?” Papa’s gravelly voice came from behind Zavion.
The truck stopped at a T in the road. The sun rose up fast and a yellow glow seeped into the air. Jake put on his right blinker. “Henry’s exactly right. We’re almost there,” he said. “Look.” As they made the turn, a mountain appeared out of nowhere like the sky had birthed it just at that moment.
Zavion’s heart pounded with excitement.
chapter 68
HENRY
Henry’s heart pounded with fear.
chapter 69
ZAVION
“That’s it, isn’t it?” asked Zavion.
“Yup. Mount Mansfield,” said Henry.
The mountain peak stretched across the golden horizon, long like Zavion’s new scarf.
“It’s such a long mountain range. I didn’t expect that.”
“The story goes,” said Henry, “that it used to have a taller peak, more like a normal old mountain, straight up and down, and Native Americans would climb it to find a private place to wait when they knew they were about to die.”
“You know the legend?” said Jake.
“You told it to me, Jake,” said Henry.
Jake laughed. “R
ight.”
“Like, a hundred times.”
“Okay, okay—”
“So one day,” said Henry, “a chief tried to make the journey to the top. He was hurt, though, and couldn’t really climb, and he died before he reached the summit. God carved his profile into the mountain. That’s why Mansfield looks like a face.”
A face—
“Grandmother Mountain has a face carved into it too,” Zavion said. He looked back at Papa. “We decided it did, anyway, didn’t we?” Papa nodded.
“What is Grandmother Mountain?” asked Henry.
“I’ve heard of Grandfather Mountain,” said Jake.
“They’re near each other,” said Papa. “Grandfather is part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Grandmother is across the valley. Pioneers thought they saw the face of an old man in one of the cliffs of Grandfather, and so they changed its Cherokee name, Tanawha, to Grandfather.”
“My mama told the story that Grandmother Mountain was a wanderer,” continued Zavion. “She never could settle, and moved from valley to valley, from river to stream, until she got lost one day, and she was scared. But in the morning, she saw a face come into focus as the sun came up, and she fell in love. It was Grandfather Mountain. And so she put down her roots and stayed forever.
“My mama was born near Grandmother Mountain,” finished Zavion. “And when Papa painted the mural of it in my room, he painted the face of a woman in its highest cliff.”
“An old grandma?” said Henry.
“No,” said Zavion. “He painted my mama’s face.”
Another Kind of Hurricane Page 15