Little Blackbird

by Jennifer Moorman

  “I hope you aren’t referring to me. I’m not trying to avoid you.” Her voice trembled like struck glass.

  His dark eyebrows rose on his forehead.

  She heaved a sigh. “Trying to leave unnoticed is not the same.”

  Geoffrey laughed, and Kate looked up at him. His bruises had faded into faint yellow shadows. His pale eyes watched her, and Kate felt Sally’s eyes on them too.

  “I noticed you,” Geoffrey said.

  “It’s a small shop.”

  “No, I mean. I noticed you before. Anywhere really. You stand out.”

  Kate exhaled, and the jars around them vibrated on the shelves. She smoothed her hands down her lilac-colored, ruffled skirt. “Because I’m different and because of my brother.”

  “No, because you’re…well, you’re beautiful.”

  A laugh burst unexpectedly from Kate’s mouth. No one, other than her parents—and they definitely didn’t count—had ever even hinted that she was beautiful. The most creative words anyone had ever used to describe her were exotic but strange.

  She pushed past Geoffrey because she couldn’t stand still any longer. Her heart slapped against her ribcage, and she inhaled shallow breaths. He grabbed her wrist with a grasp that was not meant to hurt her, only to make her pause. She looked down at his thin fingers wrapped around her tiny wrist.

  “I’m serious,” he said so only she could hear. “Can I come see you again?”

  Kate’s brow wrinkled. “Why?”

  Geoffrey chuckled and released her wrist. He adjusted the crutches. “Because I want to talk to you. Get to know you. Like normal people do.”

  “Are you assuming you’re normal?” she asked. Because I’m definitely not, but he probably already knows that. I’m like the freak exhibit in the circus. Pay five cents and see the odd, sad half-Indian girl living in the forest. Ten cents and we’ll let you see her blackout while having a worthless premonition.

  Geoffrey smiled at her, and she knew the stories about the Hamilton men were true. She pressed the candy bag against her chest again, holding her heart inside her.

  “So?” he asked.

  She imagined the burning fuse racing toward the dynamite again, and she wondered who held the lit match. Her or him? “When?”

  “Tonight?”

  She glanced out the windows, looking for her daddy. He stood by their car talking to someone. “After eleven. They’ll be asleep by then.”

  When she looked back at Geoffrey, his green eyes were full of mischief, and she almost changed her mind.

  “This is a rotten idea,” she said.

  “The worst,” he agreed.

  She raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

  “I’ll see you tonight.”

  Kate walked away. As she rounded the last aisle to pay for her candy, Matthias stepped toward her. Kate inhaled the scent of peppermint.

  “Good afternoon, Kate,” he said.

  Like all the Hamilton boys, Matthias was striking with dark hair and pale eyes. He reminded Kate of a film star. Matthias was just as tall as Geoffrey, but he lacked the lanky, loose limbs. Matthias was broader, less angular, and his eyes were as blue as a robin’s egg.

  Kate only saw Matthias occasionally during the summertime or around the holidays. He’d been away at college for at least three years. And she was quite sure in all the years she’d seen him in town, he’d never once spoken to her before. She had always been Evan’s little sister, nothing more, and certainly not worth speaking to.

  “Good afternoon, Matthias,” she said after a long pause.

  He stepped closer to her, and she loosened her grip on the candy bag.

  “I wanted to thank you for helping Geoffrey,” he said. Then his voice lowered and vibrated the air around them as he added, “The other day at the wreck.”

  Kate’s eyes widened. “He–he told you?”

  Matthias straightened and shrugged. “Not exactly. He said an angel helped him. Knowing that you lived up the road and that you likely knew how to apply salves and splint his ankle, I put two and two together. My mom, well, she probably believed his angel story, but I’m not so easily fooled. You really helped him, you know. He would have been in worse shape without your assistance.”

  Kate glanced away from the compliment. Hearing it caused a tingle to sweep up her neck and across her face, and she reached up her cool fingertips to touch her cheek. “I would have done the same for anyone.”

  “I know,” Matthias said.

  When she looked up at him, he was smiling, and she wondered if the Hamilton men knew the power of the gesture. Her shoulders relaxed.

  “And why couldn’t it have been an angel who rescued him?” she asked, sliding the toe of her sandal against the floor.

  Matthias chuckled. “My brother? Being visited by an angel? Highly unlikely. But knowing it really was you, they could be one and the same.”

  The compliment pulled a hesitant smile from Kate. She could tell Matthias wasn’t trying to flatter her. His compliments were kind and sincere. She nodded goodbye. At the checkout counter, Kate saw curiosity in Sally’s eyes, but she didn’t ask Kate about her conversation with Geoffrey or with Matthias. After all, if she couldn’t ask Kate if she could borrow a pencil at school, then Sally certainly couldn’t ask Kate about the Hamilton boys.

  KATE STOOD IN front of her mirror and rolled long pieces of her hair around a hairbrush handle. Then she tried to bobby pin the roll of hair to the top of her head. When she pulled out the hairbrush, her fine hair sagged against her head like a deflated balloon. Someone knocked on her bedroom door, and she snatched the bobby pin from her hair and raked her fingers through the strands.

  “Come in,” she called with a voice pitched too high.

  Her mama pushed open the door and stepped inside. “What are you doing?”

  Kate fidgeted with the hem of her shirt. “Nothing.”

  Her mama’s dark eyes narrowed. “Every dish in the cabinets is trembling. The wind chimes are ringing outside, and there’s no breeze. And there’s enough energy in this room to light up the town. You’re doing something.”

  Kate looked at her reflection. “I was only messing with my hair.” She glanced at her mama but didn’t meet her gaze. And thinking about seeing Geoffrey tonight.

  “What’s wrong with your hair?”

  Kate pulled her fingers through her hair again. “Nothing. I was just trying a new style. Like the girls in town.”

  “What girls?” her mama asked.

  Kate sighed. “The pretty ones, Mama.”

  “You’re a pretty one.”

  Kate shook her head. “No, I’m not. Look at me. I’m–”

  “You’re what?” her mama interjected. She crossed her arms over her chest.

  At least half a dozen answers popped into her head—dark, Indian, skinny, weird, awkward, uncool—but Kate answered, “Different.”

  “And you’d rather be, what? Exactly like someone else?”

  “Maybe more like Sally Rensforth.”

  Her mama laughed, but it coated everything in the room like ashes, leaving a taste on Kate’s tongue that was as bitter as maror. Kate shivered.

  Her mama’s mouth pinched. “You’d like to be the same as someone who has nightmares every night? Like someone who is still afraid of the dark.”

  Kate whirled around. “Mama, you don’t know that.”

  “Don’t I? How about Martha Lee? You want to be like her?”

  Kate shrugged. “She’s pretty. Lots of boys like her.”

  “She steals her father’s liquor and hides it beneath her bed. She also steals from the drugstore on a regular basis. Patty Adams is in love with her first cousin. Sarah Connelly–”

  “Mama–”

  “Don’t mama me. Why would you want to be like any of them?”

  “People already think we’re weird enough without you sharing their secrets.” Kate slumped onto her bed. She stared down at her colorful, patchwork skirt that fell to her ankles. Not a s
ingle girl in town wore the same kind of clothes Kate did. Those girls all looked like they shopped on Main Street, while Kate looked like a girl who’d been dressed by gypsies.

  “I’m only telling you their secrets, and I’m trying to prove that being like everyone else isn’t always a good thing.” Her mama sat beside her on the bed and sighed. She pushed Kate’s hair behind her shoulders.

  Kate laced her fingers together in her lap and stared at her hands. “It was always so easy for Evan. He fit in with everyone.”

  Her mama’s spine stiffened. Kate knew her mama’s grief was still raw and wild and had the ability to steal the sun, but Kate also knew her mama could hear Evan’s name sometimes and still smile as though she might be seeing his face before her.

  “That was his talent,” her mama said. “Yours is different. You’re never going to be like them, Little Blackbird. You’re going to be infinitely better.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  Her mama smiled. “Trust me. And as for boys, you shouldn’t be worrying about them right now. But if you were old enough for them, they’d be stupid not to like you just the way you are.”

  Kate was so tempted to tell her mama about Geoffrey that she had to bite her tongue to stop herself. But what would she say? Hey, Mama, now that you mention it, I’m sneaking out tonight to meet a boy. I hope that’s okay. I doubt he likes me, but he did say I was beautiful. I’ll try to be back before midnight.

  Her mama stood and walked toward the door. “Now, settle down in here before you set the house on fire. Your father and I are going to bed soon. Don’t stay up too late, okay?”

  Kate nodded, wondering if midnight was considered to be too late.

  WHEN GEOFFREY KNOCKED at her window, Kate was already dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a black tank top. She’d been waiting for him in the shadows of her room, unable to sleep, drinking cup after cup of lavender tea. She lifted the sash, inhaled and exhaled three deep breaths, and crawled out into the darkness.

  “Where are your shoes?” he asked as he hobbled along beside her.

  “Don’t need them,” she said. “It’s not as though we’re going far.”

  “What if an emergency comes up?”

  Kate glanced at the glowing, full moon. “For example, if you turn into a werewolf?”

  Geoffrey laughed. “Why me? What if you’re the werewolf?”

  Kate stared at the moon’s wrinkled reflection on the river as they approached the water. “Then you’re definitely out of luck with that bum leg.”

  Geoffrey laughed again, and Kate shushed him. He looked over his shoulder at her house, which was nearly concealed behind the trees. He stopped a few feet from the water and sat on one of the boulders. He propped his crutches beside him. Kate hesitated. She couldn’t sit beside him on the boulder. That would be too close and inappropriate, and she wasn’t sure she could sit still at all. Her insides squirmed like earthworms exposed after heavy rains. She unclenched her hands and chose a seat closer to the river, letting her feet dangle into the water.

  They sat in silence, listening to the water rush and ripple over smooth river stones. Crickets chirped, and an owl hooted from the tall pines across the river. Kate closed her eyes and could almost pretend she was alone—if it wasn’t for the way the air felt alive and fidgety or the way the fireflies darted around their bodies, drawn to them because of the energy. The wind sounded like reed pipes as it weaved through the trees. Her insides twisted and curled around themselves.

  “Why do you live way out here?” Geoffrey asked.

  Kate opened her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Why don’t you live in the city? It’s not like you couldn’t afford a nice house in town. Your dad makes—well, he makes a good living.”

  “Mama doesn’t like living in town. She wants to live closer to nature.”

  “I guess I can understand that, but why the tiny house? Wait, that didn’t come out right–”

  Kate jerked her head toward him, narrowing her eyes. “It came out rudely,” she said. “Is that what you were aiming for? Not everyone can or wants to live in a mansion like Honeysuckle Hollow.”

  Kate would never admit that she’d always wanted to see the inside of the Hamiltons’ Queen Anne-style home and walk through their garden. Evan had been in the mansion several times and always spoke of it as though it was a museum full of antiques and shiny floors. The past spring Kate’s daddy helped build a gazebo in the Hamiltons’ backyard, which he said was immaculate and bursting with colorful flowers.

  Geoffrey chuckled. “No, cool it. You make me nervous. Let me restate it.”

  Kate shook her head. “I make you nervous? How is that possible?”

  “You’re just so different from other girls. You’re so…honest.”

  “And other girls lie?”

  Geoffrey shook his head. “Nah, not exactly. They’re busy trying to make sure everything they say and do is perfect and classy and proper. And you say whatever you want.”

  Kate’s shoulders sagged. She looked toward the river. “And that means I’m not perfect or classy or proper?” Add more to the list of why it’s no good to be me.

  “No, now, you’re taking my words and twisting them all around. What I’m trying to say is that I like it. I like that you talk to me and it doesn’t seem fake.”

  “Believe me, if I could fake anything, I wouldn’t choose this.”

  Geoffrey laughed again, and she turned to look at him, at the way his eyes closed and his nose scrunched up. She smiled.

  “See, that’s what I mean. You don’t talk like other girls. I bet your biggest news isn’t about your hair or your new dress or what Denise Maloney is wearing.”

  “Why would my biggest news be about Denise Maloney’s clothes?” she asked.

  “That’s my point.” He picked up a river-washed pebble and tossed it into the water.

  The moon’s reflection burst apart into crystals of light, sending messages up to the sky. Slowly, the moon’s light rippled across the water and put itself back together.

  “To answer your question,” Kate said, “my mama doesn’t prize material possessions. She doesn’t care about things. She loves nature and people and plants and animals. That’s what matters to her. She’s never wanted a big house full of breakable stuff to stare at or dust. We like our cottage out here. We have enough space for us. And my daddy says he wouldn’t care even if they lived in a box as long as he could be with Mama.”

  Geoffrey fell silent for so long that Kate turned around to look at him. His gaze was cast far into the trees.

  “My dad would probably be fine if my mom lived in a separate house.”

  “Why?”

  “Have you met my mom?”

  Kate shook her head. “Not directly.”

  “She’s difficult. Demanding too.” He circled his forefingers around and around each other. “She’s wound way too tight, like a spring ready to blast out of here.”

  “And your daddy?” Kate asked.

  “A perfectionist all the way. I’m not sure he’s ever stepped out of line in his life. That’s probably why we—me and my brothers—are always pushing way past the boundaries. Well, except Matthias. He’s the good son.”

  “And you’re not?”

  “I dunno,” he said with a slow smile. “I’ll let you decide.”

  Her fingertips tingled, and the prickle spread up her arms, searing her skin as though she’d been in the sunlight too long. Deciding whether or not Geoffrey was a good son would require her to spend more time with him, to get to know him, to decide whether or not he was safe, whether or not she could trust herself around him.

  He must have sensed her hesitation because when he spoke again, his voice sounded urgent, like one in need of a quick fix, one in need of reassurance.

  “Can I see you again?” he asked.

  “I can’t keep sneaking out like this. Sooner or later my mama is gonna find out.”

  “How? She’s asleep
.”

  Kate pulled her fingers through her hair. “You don’t know her, so you’ll have to trust me. She’ll know.” Because if I keep rattling the dishes and trembling like an autumn leaf, she’s going to see right through me.

  “My parents are going up to the lake for the weekend,” Geoffrey said, leaning forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “Dad is meeting a medical school friend up there. Why don’t you come over?”

  The crickets stopped chirping, and the forest fell silent. Kate turned her face toward the river because she couldn’t look at him.

  “To your house?” What did that mean? Was he wanting to have her at his house for an afternoon of tea and conversations about the weather, or was he talking about something darker, after sunset, moments that would be even more improper than their late-night meetings?

  “Maybe Saturday afternoon,” he said.

  Kate exhaled, and the river rippled away from her. “I doubt my parents would let me come over to your house without your parents being there.”

  “My brothers will be home.”

  “That’s not helping.”

  “They could be chaperones.”

  Kate scoffed. “After you’ve just admitted that y’all are always pushing the boundaries?”

  “Not Matthias,” he said.

  When she turned to finally look at him, he was grinning at her like Wonderland’s Cheshire Cat.

  “A house full of young men and me is hardly appropriate. I don’t know what kind of girl you think–”

  “Don’t,” he interrupted, “finish that sentence. I only want to see you. Let me think…wait, how about you say you’re going to Martha Lee’s or Charlotte LaRue’s? Martha’s your age, and I’ve known Charlotte forever. They’re friends of mine. Nice girls. They wouldn’t care if you used them in secret.”

  “You want me to lie to my parents?” Kate asked.

  It wasn’t as though she’d never lied, but those were little lies, insignificant omissions, such as forgetting to put the lid on the flour canister and denying it or saying she liked her clothes just fine when all the other girls wore fashionable outfits and lipstick the color of poppies.