Stonebird

by Mike Revell

  “He did.”

  “Isn’t he in the retirement home?”

  That gets his attention. He jolts up, eyes glaring.

  “DON’T talk to me about that retirement home.” He screams the first word, but after that his voice is so quiet I can barely hear him. His eyes get thinner and thinner.

  “Why not? My grandma’s in there too. I know how it feels.”

  “You don’t know how it feels!” he yells. Then, maybe realizing how loud he’s being, he says again, much quieter, “You don’t. No one knows how it feels.”

  There’s a knock on the door. His dad pokes his head in and asks if everything’s okay. Heart racing, I turn to Matt, but he just nods and picks up his controller again.

  “We’re fine,” he says. “We’re taking turns playing this.”

  “All right,” says his dad, shutting the door behind him. “Dinner’s in an hour.”

  By the time Mom gets back, the silence in Matt’s room has lasted so long it’s not even awkward anymore. If Jess was here, she’d be bored stiff. She gets bored in about five seconds. But I don’t mind being on my own, just listening and thinking.

  I still can’t believe Mrs. Culpepper knows Grandma. It sounds as if she really likes her too. Grandma helped her out when she was in trouble.

  I don’t think murderers usually help people.

  But why would Grandma say she’s killed before if it isn’t true?

  I haven’t had a chance to look at the diary recently. If Nancy Wake the White Mouse spy got this lazy, she’d easily have been caught by the Germans. There’s got to be something in there. I’m not going to find any proof if I don’t look.

  “How was it?” Mom asks as we pull away and the lights from the house disappear behind the trees.

  It was horrible. The words are there on my lips, but she’s been crying again, I can see it. Her eyes are dark, and her cheeks are red where she’s rubbed them, and even though there are no black makeup-trickles down them, I can see smudges where she’s tried to wipe them away.

  “It was okay.”

  “Good,” she says. Her lips twitch like she’s trying to smile, then quiver and drop back into place. “Maybe you’ll be able to go around again soon.”

  “Cool . . .” The word is automatic. But my attempt at a smile is just as bad as Mom’s.

  21

  That night I take out the diary again.

  I flip through, looking for any clues, but there’s nothing. It’s all regular stuff. She talks about her first boyfriend. She talks about finding flowers to put in her hair at the school ball. She talks about playing the piano and watching racing and going for walks along the beach. But I can’t find anything to prove she’s a killer.

  Then I see something that makes me stop.

  January 2, 1941

  The scream carried all the way across the graveyard.

  That’s the only reason I knew they were there. I ducked into the trees and crept closer, trying to keep out of sight.

  Claire and her friends were outside the door. I couldn’t see what poor girl they took in this time, but whoever it was, they didn’t last long.

  She screamed, banging and banging on the door.

  I don’t understand what’s so scary about the church. It’s not like there are actually any ghosts. Maybe it’s different when they shut you in there.

  Maybe it’s different when they lock the door.

  It’s that name again. Claire. The girl who stole Grandma’s math homework. Could all this have something to do with her?

  Over the page there’s another entry.

  January 3, 1941

  It was Sarah Potts that they took inside the church.

  The news shot around school today.

  I really feel sorry for her, because all anyone talked about was how loud she screamed. I thought the whole point of the ritual was to see how long you could last without getting scared, but now it seems as though the only point is to laugh at you.

  That’s all I could hear when I went to bed last night.

  Not Sarah screaming, even though it was loud, but Claire’s laugh. It rang from the walls and carried all the way across the graveyard.

  Locking someone inside a dark church just to scare them? Here I was, thinking Matt’s horrible. He’s shoved dirt in my mouth and chased me and threatened me, but he’s never done anything like that.

  It doesn’t sound like a ritual. It sounds more like torture.

  Even so, Claire was just a girl. A schoolkid. Could Grandma really have killed her? It doesn’t seem very likely. But a real spy wouldn’t give up on a lead so easily. It’s not like I’ve got any other ideas to investigate.

  I slide the diary back under the bed and grab my phone.

  Then I google Claire Swanbury to see what comes up. There’s something about a baking competition and something about the army and something about a charity run, but there’s nothing about a murder.

  Jess has said all along that it was the demon talking, and even though I believe her, I can’t stop thinking about it.

  What if she really was a killer?

  But there’s nothing in the diary and there’s nothing on the Internet, and now I don’t know where else to look.

  Maybe I’m getting carried away. Maybe the reason I haven’t found anything is because there’s nothing to find in the first place. I mean . . . Grandma killing someone?

  Suddenly the thought makes me feel like the World’s Biggest Idiot.

  22

  In the morning, I yank open the curtains to let the light flood in. The sun’s so bright that it takes me a while to notice.

  The garden . . .

  I’m so used to its tumbled plant pots and mountains of red-and-orange leaves that I stop and stare. The grass is cut and the plants have been put back and the leaves have been cleared. It looks so . . . clean. So normal. So gardeny.

  “No way . . .”

  “Liam!” Mom calls up from the kitchen. “Jess! Breakfast!”

  Mom hasn’t made us breakfast in days. I stare at the garden for a few seconds more, thinking how nice it looks with the birds tweeting and pecking at the bird feeders and the sun shining. Then I run downstairs and into the kitchen.

  Bacon. It’s the most amazing smell in the world. It fills the kitchen as the meat sizzles. Mom leans over it, shaking the pan to make sure it doesn’t stick. The blinds are down. She hasn’t seen the garden yet.

  Jess comes in a few minutes later, busy on her phone.

  “Morning, love,” Mom says.

  Jess grunts a hello. Her hair’s all over the place and she’s still in her bathrobe with her owl slippers on, sliding along the floor like a sleepwalking zombie.

  The pan sizzles away.

  “Mom?” I say, trying to hide a smile. “Can you open the window? It’s a bit smoky in here.”

  She takes the pan off the heat and moves over to the window, rolling up the blind to let bright light slam in. She squints and holds a hand up to shield her eyes. The window latch bangs as she fumbles to open it.

  She’s still covering her eyes.

  She’s not going to see it.

  Look, Mom, look . . .

  She turns—

  And then she stops.

  “Oh, my goodness . . .”

  She steps back, steps back again, and stares out of the window with wide eyes.

  “The garden . . .”

  My lips twitch, and I have to cover my mouth to hide the massive grin that’s trying to split my face open. Jess looks up, her eyes asking the question even though she doesn’t say anything.

  “Who cleared up the garden?” Mom asks. She turns to face us, still gripping the edge of the sink. Her eyes are watering but she’s smiling, and the sunlight behind her makes her look as young as in the photo of her and Dad on their wedding day, stashed in the cellar.

  Jess is still looking at me. “Not me,” she says.

  “Oh, Liam!”

  Mom rushes over, slippers scuffing on the wood
en floor. She comes around the bench and squeezes me into a tight, tight hug, the kind where you can feel your ribs cracking about a hundred times and your eyes nearly pop out of your head.

  “Whenever did you get time to do it?” she says. She holds me at arm’s length. “You didn’t have to. You really didn’t have to . . .”

  “I—”

  “I love you. I really do, you know.” She turns to Jess and hugs her too. “Oh, this is just the most great start to the day.” With one last big smile, she practically skips back to the stove to shake the bacon again.

  Jess leans in close, eyes narrow. “It wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t.”

  “Who was it then?” I whisper.

  “You’re up to something. Why didn’t you tell her the truth?”

  I can’t keep the grin off my face.

  ***

  After breakfast, when we’re walking out the door and Mom is waving at us through the window, I say to Jess, “I can show you, if you want.”

  We’re going down the lane, toward the church. Jess has to catch her bus just around the corner from my school, but there should be enough time if we’re quick.

  “I’ve only got ten minutes,” she says, checking her watch.

  “It won’t take long.”

  I lead her off the lane, through the thick grass and the fence that crumbles under your hands and up the drive toward the church. It’s the same as every morning when I walk past it: old and moody and dark.

  “I don’t like this place,” she says.

  “You came here with Ben.”

  “But he’s not here now, is he?”

  The church door bangs in the wind, cutting her off. It drifts open and creaks closed as we approach.

  “It’s not scary,” I say.

  I lead her to the door, gravel crunching under our feet.

  Jess stops, but I push through without waiting to see if she follows me. She won’t want to seem more frightened than her kid brother. As we step into the aisle, I realize she’s holding her breath. But I don’t say anything, because I am too. I don’t know what to expect.

  Well, I do.

  It was Stonebird that cleaned up our garden, I know it was, because that’s what happened in my story. And who else could it have been? But it’s one thing seeing it in your mind and another finding out with your own eyes that it’s actually true.

  All the little faces and gremlins around the roof of the church seem more wicked and evil in the light from the broken windows.

  “Wait till you see what’s in here,” I say.

  “Liam . . . this isn’t that gargoyle thing again, is it? You’re not going to fool me this time.”

  There’s a sharp bang. A rat scuttles out in front of her, and she springs back in shock.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “It’s okay,” I say.

  She steps back and looks up at the glaring gargoyles. “You’re just trying to frighten me,” she says. “I’m going back.”

  “Jess—,” I call.

  But she’s already gone.

  I wait there for a moment, then push through the crypt door, down into the dark.

  He’s facing away from me, his huge wings curled together like armor over his back.

  He’s moved again.

  And then I see it. Right there under my feet. Mud. Stonebird’s trailed mud into the tiny room, all the way over to the window where he’s sitting. Mud and grass and leaves.

  There are grimy clumps between his toes and under his claws. I glance down at my hands. I can almost imagine the egg’s warmth running through them.

  How is this possible?

  Suddenly I’m glad Jess didn’t come in here.

  I don’t want her to know about this. I don’t want anyone to know about this.

  I walk closer until I’m standing before him. I reach out a hand that looks so pale in the morning light, and touch his chest, where his heart would be.

  It’s warm again.

  If Stonebird tidied my mom’s garden, then—

  “You really are alive,” I say.

  He did fly off. He did protect me. He did clean the garden. I’ve told three different stories, and every time Stonebird has acted out my words.

  So what if I tell another one?

  23

  Someone’s outside the house when I get back from school. At first I think it’s the postman, but then I remember the postman comes at eleven o’clock, not half past three. And anyway, he’s got baggy jeans and a skateboard, and I don’t think people deliver mail on skateboards. It’s only when I get closer that I see it’s Jess’s boyfriend.

  “All right, Liam,” he says.

  A screech from inside the house.

  “I guess you’ve met Mom, then,” I say.

  “Yep.”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  “Better not,” he says, kicking the welcome mat with his toe. “Seeing as your mom kicked me out and all.”

  I laugh, but then realize he might be serious, so I cover it up by coughing. I open the front door, and a wave of sound smacks against me as soon as I let myself in.

  “—AND SKIPPING SCHOOL?—” screams Mom.

  “—YOU’RE NOT EVEN LISTENING TO ME!” Jess yells.

  Daisy slinks out of the kitchen and into the living room. She crawls under the table and rests her head on her front paws. Before I can even take my shoes off, Jess is marching out of the kitchen too, tears flooding down her cheeks.

  “Jess!” says Mom, quieter now. “Where are you going?”

  “Out,” says Jess, and she’s quiet too, both of them suddenly so quiet, but it’s the kind of quiet that could bubble over at any second, and still neither of them has seen me, even though I’m standing right here in the hallway.

  “Come back, Jess,” Mom says.

  But Jess just barges past me and marches to the front door.

  “Jess, you’re thirteen.”

  “Nearly fourteen!” she yells. “Everyone else at school has a boyfriend. I don’t see why I have to be the only person in the world who doesn’t have one. He’s really nice. Liam’s met him. He’ll tell you.”

  For a second I think they’re going to drag me into it, but then they just start yelling at each other again. They’re getting louder and louder and higher and higher, and I cover my ears to stop the noise. Part of me wants to go and sit with Daisy. Part of me wants to run and see Stonebird and hide in the dark church.

  Then all of a sudden everything stops.

  I open my eyes.

  “What did you say?” Mom says.

  She’s looking right at me.

  My ears are ringing, and my mind feels like it’s in a million pieces. Did I say something? I move my lips, trying to remember any words that came out of them, but I don’t like it when people stare, and I can feel my neck growing sticky with sweat.

  Then the memory comes back.

  Something I read in the diary . . .

  “Grandma had a boyfriend when she was thirteen,” I say again.

  “How do you know that?” Mom says. Her face is as still as a stone mask, and I can’t tell if she’s angry or upset anymore. “I didn’t even know that.”

  And that’s when I know I can’t keep Grandma’s diary a secret any longer. I could try to think up a story, but it wouldn’t work, not now, not with my head ringing like this.

  “I read it in her diary,” I say.

  “Her diary?”

  “I found it when we were sorting stuff. It was in a box in the garage.”

  “And you didn’t think to tell me about it?” Mom turns to Jess and says, “Did you know about this?”

  Jess shakes her head.

  You know how there are two types of crying, and one can make you a bit annoyed and one can make you really sad? Like when you hear a baby crying on a train and it’s the loudest thing ever and all you want to do is get off to find some peace and quiet; but if you see someone crying silently with tears trickling slowly down their cheeks, it m
akes you feel like you’re a domino falling over on the spot?

  That’s how I’m feeling now—like a great big domino falling onto my back.

  Later that night, I’m lying in bed thinking, It’s all my fault.

  I gave Mom the diary, but she’s still downstairs, and it’s been wine o’clock for a while now. Jess is in her room with the music blaring, and she’s probably crying too.

  This morning everything was perfect. Mom was so happy, she could have danced around the house, and even Jess was okay. Now everything’s falling apart, and every single bit of it is because of me.

  But I’m the Man of the House, and that means I’ve got to try to put things right.

  The trouble is, how do you put things right when there’s so much to fix? I wonder if Nancy Wake the White Mouse ever felt like this when she was dodging Nazis and smuggling people out of France.

  Then it hits me.

  Stonebird.

  If he sorted out Mom’s garden just because I told a story about it, maybe he can help me again now. But that garden story was so embarrassing! I didn’t exactly plan on saying it. It just came out. And what if it doesn’t work this time?

  Even so, the thought lights something inside me that sparks and burns and makes me want to get back to school as soon as possible.

  I pull out a notebook and grab a pen to make a list of things to fix, and this is what it says:

  • Help Mom deal with all the awful stuff that’s happening.

  • Stop Jess from skipping school and help her make up with Mom.

  • Stop Matt bullying me once and for all.

  Now all I have to do is think up some really good stories.

  24

  The next time we sit in the story circle, I’m ready.

  I want to listen to the other stories, but my head is whirring and I can’t focus. I’m just waiting for the egg to get to me.

  I take it in my hands and hold it up, thinking of the gargoyle, thinking of Stonebird, but most of all thinking about Mom. The words are on my tongue even before I really know what I’m going to say, and all I have to do is open my mouth.