Stonebird

by Mike Revell

  I look at Mom, heart racing. Jess is surprised too, I can see it. Maybe Grandma’s getting better. Mom just smiles sadly at me, as if she can read my mind but doesn’t want to let me down. She shakes her head and turns back to the bed.

  I follow her eyes. Grandma’s chewing at the top of her nightgown, gnawing it with her back teeth. A second is all it takes and she’s completely different, a whole other person.

  “Oh, hello, dear,” she says when she sees me watching, as though it’s in no way weird to chew your clothes. “You look a hundred miles away.”

  She stops chewing, lies back, and chuckles to herself.

  “Do you know,” Grandma says, “my mother used to say that to me, when I was a young lady. You look a hundred miles away, she’d say.”

  I step back from the bed. I can’t ask her. Not now. Not like this.

  A hand touches my shoulder. It’s Mom, with that sad smile still on her face.

  “Hi,” Mom says to Grandma, and I can hear the strain as she tries to sound happy. “It’s us. It’s Sue and Jess and Liam.”

  Grandma jolts back, frowns slightly, all the blankness gone. Her eyes move from face to face, and then it hits, and she smiles again, although it almost looks like a grimace.

  “Oh, how lovely!” she says.

  For the rest of the visit, she drifts in and out of sleep. When she talks, she says random fragments about nothing, things that don’t make sense.

  Like, “Where did it go?”

  Like, “I did look after them, didn’t I?”

  Like, “What are we doing, Arthur?”

  And when you ask her what she means, she’s already forgotten what she said.

  When Grandma falls asleep for the fourth time, Mom taps me on the shoulder and says it’s time to leave. I’m last out of the room, because I stay there looking at her for a minute, just trying to work it out.

  Where does the demon come from? How does it choose what to eat? And how can Grandma remember some things from her life so clearly, but recent stuff is there one second and gone the next? Like someone flashing past on the train. You see them and they might notice you and you wonder about them for a second, but then they’re whizzing off and a few moments later they’re gone from your life.

  Walking back down the corridor to the exit, I spot something that makes me stop.

  The name on the plaque beside one of the doors says Isabelle Higgins.

  Mom and Jess are farther up the corridor. Soon they’ll be at the door and going out to the car. But the name tugs at something in my mind.

  The door’s half open. Through the crack I can see into a room laid out just like Grandma’s. Even the window’s the same, but this one doesn’t look over the garden. The view is of the edge of the parking lot leading onto the street.

  In the bed there’s a woman. She’s not like the others in the retirement home. She’s younger. She’s got long blonde hair, and her skin has real color to it and no wrinkles. Her nails are painted red. The room is bursting with color from flowers and paintings and the TV. It’s alive.

  But the woman’s just lying there. I can see her eyes are open, but she’s just staring at the ceiling, not doing anything much at all. And—

  No, it can’t be.

  The picture in Matt’s house. This woman looks just like her. A bit older maybe, but not much.

  I inch closer. She’s talking to herself. Whispering things.

  I hold my ear to the gap between the door and the wall. It feels like my heart’s in my throat. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be seeing this.

  “Liam!” calls Jess from down the hall.

  They’re waiting there, both of them, standing in the doorway.

  It comes to me when we’re in the car on the way home: Higgins.

  It’s Matt’s surname.

  33

  Over a week passes before Matt comes back to school.

  He just walks in halfway through the day, in the middle of a lesson on the War. The board’s covered in all these amazing drawings, and Mrs. Culpepper has labeled all the planes.

  Everyone turns to see him standing in the doorway. His arm is in plaster and in a sling. I hold my breath, waiting for him to say something, but he doesn’t, just strolls over to his desk and sits in silence.

  “Welcome back, Matt,” says Mrs. Culpepper. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  After lunch, Mrs. Culpepper says we can pass the magic egg around. She looks at me as she says it, and I can see the warning in her eyes.

  The class practically explodes when she takes the egg out. They leap up and shove their chairs under the table and rush to sit in a circle before she’s even said anything.

  I’m the last to sit down. There’s no way I can tell a story about Stonebird again. I promised myself I would stop. But all I’ve ever done when I’ve held that egg is make up stories about him. What else can I say?

  Mrs. Culpepper sits on the floor cross-legged with the rest of us, but she doesn’t pass the egg on like normal. She cups it in front of her, holding it right up before her eyes. She waits for everyone to settle down and get quiet before she speaks.

  “I thought I’d join in today,” she says. “It’s been a while since I’ve told a story.”

  Her eyes move around the circle. They linger longest on me.

  “I’m going to tell you a secret,” she says. “When your principal interviewed me for this job, she asked me what my weakness was. It’s a tricky question, isn’t it? Having to admit you’re bad at something. But for me it’s easy. My weakness is my mother. I love her very much. I’d do anything for her.”

  She moves the egg around in her hands, rubbing it with her thumb.

  Then she looks up. She’s staring at me.

  “Mrs. Willis also asked me why I wanted to work here, so far from my home in Scotland. ‘I go where I’m needed,’ I said. I hope you think I’ve helped, even if in some cases I haven’t quite helped enough.”

  Why won’t she stop looking at me? I pretend to fiddle with the sleeve of my sweater, and when I look up again, she’s squinting at the little blue veins in the egg.

  “Soon I might have to go back,” she says. “My mother—she’s not very well. The doctors thought she might get better, but it seems they were wrong.”

  Hands shoot into the air. There’s an explosion of voices.

  “But, Miss!”

  “You can’t go!”

  “You’re the best teacher in the whole school!”

  But Mrs. Culpepper just holds up the egg. She taps it with her finger, reminding us of Rule Number One: only the person with the egg can talk, and the class falls silent. She smiles a sad smile.

  “Thank you,” says Mrs. Culpepper. “Who knows—maybe I won’t have to. But I’m just letting you know that I might. And if do, I’ll be taking this,” she says, holding up the egg, staring at me over the top of it. “So make use of it while you can.”

  And all I can think is—What?

  Why is she looking at me like that? Make use of it how? What am I supposed to say?

  She passes the egg, and the class tell stories about their favorite airplanes and what they dreamed about last night, and all of it’s linked, all of it comes back to Mrs. Culpepper and what we’ve learned in her lessons.

  Then it’s my turn and the egg is thrust into my hand, and even though I can feel its warmth seeping into me, my tongue is dry and my voice has run away.

  I’ve always loved stories. My head’s normally filled with characters and weird names. But not now. Now it’s only filled with ringing silence.

  I sit there for a minute, the egg in my hand, but nothing comes.

  “Liam, are you okay?” says Mrs. Culpepper.

  “Yes,” I say, without looking up.

  My palms are hot and sweaty. The egg’s heavy in my hands. I can feel a million eyes burning into me, but I try to ignore them.

  Come on, say something, anything . . .

  My knuckles are white. My hands are shaking. I want to tel
l a story to make everything okay but I don’t know how.

  There’s nothing to say.

  Nothing that can make any of it better.

  Grandma’s rotting away, probably dying, and I attacked Matt and put him in the hospital and just thinking about it makes hundreds of eels slip and slide in my stomach, and what good are words now?

  The egg falls out of my hands and rolls across the carpet.

  The stories made me feel like a superhero, like I could make a difference. With Stonebird as my friend, I thought I could do anything. But I can’t think of him anymore. I have to cut him out, because it’s too easy to make a mistake, to get carried away.

  And without him, I’m empty.

  Without him, I’m useless.

  When I get home, I go straight to my room.

  Everything’s so loud in my head.

  Mrs. Culpepper might be leaving. I’ve never had a teacher like her before. She’s kind and easy to talk to, and she can make the most boring stuff seem really interesting because she gets so excited about it. If she leaves, who’s going to do the story circle?

  She can’t leave. I need her.

  And Grandma . . . I’m so sure that she killed Claire. But who am I to say anything? I could have done the same to Matt.

  Mrs. Culpepper tried to warn me. She said gargoyles can be dangerous.

  But I thought I could control him. I thought I could get him to do what I wanted, but I can’t. Once the words leave my mouth, they’re not mine anymore. They belong to Stonebird. And he can do what he wants with them.

  Claire Smith. Taken too young.

  The diary’s still on my bedroom floor, but I don’t look at it. Instead I grab my phone. Now I know her surname, I search for Claire Smith Swanbury 1941. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to do this.

  A story comes up on the website for the Swanbury Reporter. It’s a scan of an old newspaper clipping, with an ancient-looking font and a weird logo:

  CHURCH CATASTROPHE—TERROR AS ROOF CAVES IN

  A Swanbury family has been left devastated after the roof of the local church collapsed on their 13-year-old daughter—

  The church!

  So that’s why it’s such a wreck.

  And if it happened in the church, then—

  Stonebird. It has to be. Grandma must have used Stonebird to kill her.

  34

  In the morning, I eat breakfast in silence. I’m trying not to blink because every time I close my eyes I see Grandma standing over the dead body of Claire in the broken church. Mom’s emptying the dishwasher, and Jess has barely looked up since I entered the room.

  “What’s going on with you two?” Mom says after a while.

  “Nothing,” Jess mumbles.

  Mom looks from Jess to me and back. “That’s precisely my point,” she says. She sits down next to us and sighs. “Look, I know things have been—well, not great recently. But I want you both to know that I love you. Liam, you were so brave last week with Matt. And, Jess, your teacher says your attendance is right up. I’m really proud of you. Both of you.”

  I smile a thank-you at Mom, even though if she knew the truth she wouldn’t be proud of me at all. She’s trying to be cheerful, trying to be strong for us. It hasn’t been wine o’clock for a week. I cross my fingers and silently wish that she can stay like this, no matter how bad Grandma gets.

  Jess doesn’t look up, though. She’s fiddling with her thumbs.

  “So, Jess,” Mom says, “I was wondering . . . how about we invite Ben around for dinner later?”

  That puts a smile on Jess’s face.

  Normally we eat dinner in the living room, but Mom sets out four places at the dining table especially. Earlier on, she shut Daisy in the utility room and said we’re not allowed to let her out until everyone’s finished. Now Daisy’s bouncing up and down so she can peer out of the window. Her ears flap like tiny wings every time she disappears out of sight. I think the smell of the food is driving her crazy.

  “What’s the time?” says Jess, even though there’s a clock above the fridge.

  “Coming up to six,” I say.

  “Oh, where is he?” she says.

  Wine o’clock started half an hour ago and Mom’s already at Stage Two.

  I’ve worked out that there are four stages, and they go like this:

  • One glass = humming

  • Two glasses = singing

  • Three glasses = mixing up words

  • Four glasses = crying

  I hope she doesn’t go past Stage Three tonight.

  There’s a knock at the door just as Mom starts frying the chicken, and Jess bolts off the chair to answer it. I hear Ben saying something and Jess saying You look fine, and then they both come into the kitchen. I have to look away to stop from laughing because Ben’s dressed in a shirt and tie with a jacket that’s so big the sleeves hang over his hands.

  “Hello, Mrs. Williams,” he says.

  “Hello, Ben,” says Mom. She grins and turns away. “Sit down, guys. It’ll be ready in a minute.”

  “All right, Liam?” says Ben as he and Jess shuffle into the dining room.

  “Hi,” I say.

  I pull a face at Jess, and she gives me a look that says, DON’T SAY ANYTHING, so I don’t, because Ben seems nice and I want it to go well for them.

  Jess sits next to Ben and leans close to him.

  “Have you washed your hair since school?” she whispers.

  “Maybe,” he says.

  She nudges him playfully and looks up at me. “How was school?” she asks.

  “All right,” I say.

  In the kitchen, Mom’s voice rises above the sound of the sizzling chicken. She’s making up a song, humming the tune louder and louder.

  “Here you are, kiddos,” she says, bringing the plates over two at a time. She sits next to me and puts down her glass, and wine sloshes all over the table. “Oops,” she says, giggling to herself, and she gets up to fetch some kitchen roll.

  “Sorry,” says Jess, under her breath.

  Ben shakes his head, as if to say, Don’t worry about it.

  No one speaks when Mom gets back. Jess just looks at her food and Ben looks at Jess and Mom’s looking around at all of us with blurry eyes and a big smile on her face. I’ve seen that smile before, when we visited Grandma in the home for the first time. I asked, Are you okay? and Mom said, Yes, and she smiled that smile, and I said, Are you sure? and she said, Yes, but then her smile wobbled and tears started running down her cheeks.

  Everything she does makes it seem like she’s happy. The singing and the humming and calling us kiddos. It’s like what you’d find in a school textbook if you were learning about happy.

  But something’s not right. It’s too happy. And that makes me think that maybe she’s not happy at all.

  “This looks amazing,” I say, trying to make her happy for real. I start wolfing it down, even though the chicken’s so hot it burns the top of my mouth.

  “Yeah,” says Ben. “Great. Really great.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Mom says.

  There’s quiet for a long time. Then Ben looks up and says, “It must be hard.”

  And Mom says, “What must?”

  And Ben says, “You know—having your mom in a home. It must be hard.”

  Jess and I glance at each other, and I know we’re thinking the same thing.

  “It is,” Mom says. “She’s not much of a talker anymore . . .”

  “My nan’s hilarious. She shouts at the TV like it can hear her. You never know what she’s going to say next.”

  My heart crashes in my chest and I stop eating so I can listen, but all the while I’m thinking, No no no no—

  Mom’s smiling that sad smile again. “I’d love to be able to talk to my mom properly. Even just for a moment. Part of me would anyway . . .” She stops and downs the rest of her drink and closes her eyes tight shut. When she opens them again she says, “But part of me—part of me thinks
she would be better off dead.”

  The silence rings. Mom looks up as if she’s surprised herself. I pull a face that’s meant to tell her to change the subject, but it doesn’t work.

  “Sorry,” she says. “It’s been a bit of a rough day.”

  It looks as if she wants to say more, but she stops. Tears well up in the corners of her eyes. She tries to smile around at us, but her lips wobble, and now the tears are trickling down her cheeks and falling on the table.

  “What is it?” I say. “Is it Grandma? Is she okay?”

  “Not really,” Mom says, her voice cracking. “She could barely open her eyes today. She’s in constant pain. She’s thinner than ever. I think—I think we’re going to have to get used to the idea that she may not be around for much longer.”

  She pours another drink.

  Everyone looks away, at the table or the walls or the floor.

  The food’s still hot, but I keep wolfing it down, trying not to meet anyone’s eyes.

  There’s no way this is going to end well.

  35

  “I need you—to—listen to me,” says Mom, spilling wine over her top as she tries to sit up. “I want you to—go to . . .” She lurches to her feet, holding the coffee table to steady herself. She reaches out, trying to grab my shoulder, trying to bring me close but stumbling and falling.

  “Mom!” I prop her up, help her back to the sofa.

  “Liam,” she says. “I’m so sorry. About all of this.”

  Her voice comes in bursts, the words all tumbling over themselves.

  There’s an empty bottle of wine on the table, and another on the floor by her feet that’s half full of dark red liquid. Mom’s eyes flutter and close, then burst open again, and she reaches up, trying to grab me.

  Dark makeup-streaks run down her cheeks. There are tissues on the table, so I grab one and dab Mom’s face. She tries to fight it but settles back, eyes closed, whispering words that don’t make sense.