What Gifts She Carried

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  I snapped my head up. Something had woken me. A glance at the clock showed that more than just a second had passed.

  Something rustled above my head, and I jerked to the side to see. A black bird perched on the windowsill, strutting and jerking so that its beak tapped against the side of the window ledge. Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap. Its broken head dangled side to side like it was some morbid kind of clock marking time.

  “Go away,” I whispered and reached for an ash tree key tucked into my waistband.

  Instead of listening to me, it swooped into my room and carried a reeking stink with it. Its wing beats fluttered the posters on my wall and the pile of homework on my desk as it swept around the room. I stood to chase it out but ducked when it whooshed over my head. If it knocked anything over, Dad might hear, and I couldn’t have him waking up so close to the time when I needed to go. Stupid bird. And stupid me for leaving the window open, but how else was I going to quietly escape?

  Its wings stroked against the wall I shared with Darby’s room until it hurled itself kamikaze-like onto the floor a few feet away. Moonlight fired a reddish-orange in its eyes. Its mouth sagged open, waiting for a worm I would never feed it. It lurched toward me on sharp-clawed toes.

  I shrank against the wall. Its neck, the smell, the sagging mouth—this bird was obviously dead. But what did it want with me?

  It seemed oblivious of the key in my hand, probably because I wasn’t bleeding to make it do anything.

  I pointed it at the bird anyway. “Go. Away.”

  Its stick feet jerked the rest of it closer. I swept my gaze around for anything to stab myself with. For once in my life, I wasn’t bleeding, but I really needed to be. The bird came closer still. I slid up the wall to grip the windowsill behind me, never taking my eyes off the bird, and kicked out at the feathery undead.

  Then it dived at my face.

  With a yelp, I pitched myself up and out the open window. I slammed against the ground outside, sucking in air and blinking back the pain that shot up my back.

  The bird flitted to my chest and stared at me with its rocking head. It skipped up my neck to my chin in a hurry like it was going to crawl down my throat. I bucked my body to fling it off, but it kept diving at me. The two needle sharp tips of its open beak pecked holes into my skin, but somewhere between my bedroom and the yard, I’d lost my ash tree key to use the streaming blood.

  I flailed and kicked my arms and legs. A growl filled my mouth at how much I wanted to kill this bird. Especially when it tangled its talons in my hair and flew off, dragging me into the street and into the white glow of headlights just seconds away.

  Chapter 6

  Tires screeched. One rolled right at my head but skidded to a stop a breath away. All I could do was stare at it with my heart beating an earthquake into the concrete.

  “Leigh!” A car door slammed. “What are you doing in the middle of the road? I almost hit you.”

  “Oh,” I said, but it came out sounding shocked, as though I was surprised to be alive and talking to someone. I lifted a hand to my head and winced. The bird had flown off and had taken chunks of my hair with it. That zombie bird was going to die again repeatedly.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Callum?” I pushed myself up to shield my eyes from the headlights’ glare.

  The voice sounded much too warm and deep to be anyone else. Cool air slid over my skin, adding a bitter sting to all my new holes and reviving me as much as a dead person could be. The darkened houses along the street allowed a clearer view of the stars. If I didn’t know any better, I would say Krapper seemed peaceful, void of any attack from undead birds.

  “Did you see a bird?” I asked.

  “Just now? No. Should you be standing? What were you doing in the road? I didn’t hit you, did I?”

  He shifted so he blocked some of the brightness and could really look at me. Night shadowed the bags under his eyes and darkened the scruff of hair across his chin. I’d never seen him with facial hair before.

  “You’re bleeding,” he said.

  I looked down at my hands, and sure enough, my precious ruby blood sparkled in the harsh light. “So, what’s new? I just got almost murdered by a stupid dead bird.”

  “What? Your life is so fucking weird.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You’re freezing.” He rested a hand on my shoulder, and even now, after getting attacked and nearly ran over, it sped an electrical pulse through my blood, both inside my body and out. “You can tell me everything while you get warmed up in my car.”

  I shook my head while the heat of his touch reminded me just how freezing I was. “I have to go train.”

  “Well, just until you get thawed out then.” He opened the passenger car door and shoveled the trash into the backseat instead of the road. Jo had taught him well. While he cleaned, I swept across the yard to my window and slid it nearly closed inch after inch so it wouldn’t squeak.

  While his familiar cinnamon scent drifted from the seats and tingled warmth over my tongue, I explained everything. Silence followed because what was there to say? I glanced at the scruff along his chin. He must be going for the whole men-who-go-to-college-must-wear-beards look, but his wrinkled clothes made me think he hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in a while.

  “So...” I started. “Have you seen anyone dead lurking around lately? Besides Sarah?”

  “I thought we took care of everyone dead.” He crossed his arms over his chest, probably holding himself together so he wouldn’t explode with the memory of ‘taking care of everyone dead.’

  I sighed and fiddled with the scraps of fabric on my shirt. “I thought so, too.”

  “He’s training you tonight, isn’t he?” he asked and stared straight ahead, the muscle in his jaw twitching.

  Great. This was where we headed now? The idea of curling my fingers around his throat itched at my fingertips because I was in no mood for his Tram-bashing.

  “I have to know what I am, Callum. Who else is going to train me? You?”

  “Right. Well, don’t forget about us lowly humans when your superpowers make your head swell up, or when people start making lunchboxes and bed sheets out of Captain Tree Boy and his sidekick Dead Girl.” Sarcasm coated his voice and dripped down his furry chin.

  His words jolted through me. There were so many things wrong with what he’d just said, I didn’t know where to start screaming.

  Instead, I tried to slice him into ribbons with my glare. “Did Jo tell you that or is that another rumor spreading around school about me? I’m not dead. I still feel.” My voice came out like a warning, but shook way more than it should have. “And I would never forget about—”

  “Wait.” He grabbed for my hand, his dark eyes pleading, but I shook him off. “Listen to me. I’m sorry, okay? I haven’t slept because every time I close my eyes...” He pushed his lips together into a thin line, sealing his nightmares from me. But I could see all of them in the constant tremble of his right hand.

  I sat back in my seat, staring at it, while he tried to hide it with his arms crossed over his chest again. He remembered everything. Whether he was awake or asleep, he couldn’t bury any of it.

  My hands flew to my shirt and began shredding it even more to help thicken the brain fog because I didn’t want to remember it either. Lucky for me, I didn’t have too many nightmares. It was probably because I hid underneath my bed so they wouldn’t find me.

  “I’m sorry, Callum,” I muttered.

  “I don’t know why you’re sorry. I’m the one being an asshog. I’m the one who nearly squashed you. I’m the one who should be sorry,” he said and sighed. “And I am.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you going to turn me into a tree now?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  I faked fascination with the buttons by the door’s handle. He did seem tired, almost to the point of lifeless. I shuddered. I wasn’t the only one who’d left a chunk of my old self a
t the graveyard last night. The things he saw, the things he did—it would change a person, the way it had changed me. I wanted to talk to him about it, to help him deal with it, but I didn’t want to hear any of it, if that made any sense.

  His eyebrows pinched together as he watched me tear holes in my shirt. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  At first I thought he meant help me rip my shirt off, but the concern in his face made it clear.

  I looked past him at Darby’s window. “Really?”

  “It’s the least I can do, and I’m not going to sleep anyway.”

  I glanced at him, and his steady, warm gaze gave my stomach a little flip. “You’ve done plenty already.”

  “Well,” he said, his lips quirking into a little smile, “being a tree wouldn’t be a good look for me, so if there’s a chance I can get out of that...”

  I twisted my mouth to keep from grinning. How could a few simple words and a smile affect me so much? The boy had more superpowers than he knew.

  “Would you watch the house? I mean like a creepy stalker would watch the house? With your face pressed against Darby’s window? And I give you permission to check on Dad, too.”

  “Umm, I guess so. What do I do if something happens? Call you?”

  Good question. I briefly considered not going to train so I could stay here. But there were things I could do that I knew zilch about, and I couldn’t pretend those powers didn’t exist with Gretchen’s cult in town. I had to help Tram. I had to offer my gifts, only this time not to the dead. I had to offer my gifts to keep myself and everyone around me alive.

  A solution to my problem poked blond curls out of a hole in my neighbor’s yard. A green sweatshirt and brown pants followed. He’d probably come to get me since I was late. I got out of the car and rounded the hood, making a twirling motion with my finger. Callum eventually got the message and rolled down his window.

  “Shake his hand,” I said and nodded back to Tram. “If something happens, touch a tree. It’s faster than a cell phone.”

  Callum’s hand clenched into a fist next to his side mirror before he dropped it in his lap. “I can think of a hundred other things I’d like to do.”

  “You’re the one who wanted to help.”

  “And if I don’t shake Tree Boy’s hand?”

  “Then your baseball buddies will be able to make bats out of you,” I said, shrugging. “It’s a win-win.”

  “I thought my nickname was Scary Boy, not Tree Boy.”

  I jumped and whirled around. Blond curls captured the light of a nearby street light. Shadows darkened an intense green gaze. How did he get across the street so fast?

  “Tram,” I breathed, tapping my chest to coax my heart into its regular rhythm. “Callum volunteered his eyes to watch my house while we train.”

  “Yeah, it’s just my eyes that are good for anything,” Callum said through gritted teeth.

  Tram flicked his gaze between us then settled on Callum. “It’s good to see you again, Callum.”

  “Wish I could say the same.” Callum curled his fingers around the steering wheel and squeezed.

  I glared at him. “You said you’d help.”

  “Fine. I’ll help,” he said and shoved a hand out the window without looking at Tram.

  Tram took it, and their mutual wariness thickened the air between them.

  “An hour, and then I’ll be back. Let’s go, Tram.” I let him guide me away from Callum’s car in the direction he’d come while Callum’s glare nicked sharp knives into my back.

  “Did something happen?” Tram asked.

  “Just a dead bird who wants me deader than I already am.”

  He stopped at the edge of my lawn. “What do you mean? You’re not dead.”

  “Ms. Hansen says I taste that way. She didn’t tell you?”

  “No, but...you’re alive.” His fingers found the pulse on my wrist, which started racing like mad at the brush of his skin on mine.

  “Yeah, for now, but a crazy zombie bird just tried to kill me so who knows how long that will last. Can birds be members of Gretchen’s cult?”

  “I suppose so, but if it was dead...only the skilled and very dark can resurrect the dead.”

  “Great. I’m getting really sick of skilled and very dark things.” With a deep sigh, I tugged at his arm toward the hole in the neighbor’s yard.

  “But are you okay?”

  “Fine.” I shrugged, trying to make it appear like I didn’t care. How many times had I been asked that question in the last forty-eight hours? A trillion and five. I should make a recording of me saying ‘Fine’ so I didn’t have to anymore. “Are we going to the park?”

  “I thought we’d go there second.”

  “And first?”

  “What Gifts She Carried.”

  What Gifts She Carried, also known as Whaty Whats. It used to be my favorite store before the granny twins who worked there decided they’d rather be a giant spider and Gretchen fans than sell used clothes. The last time I was there, One, Two, Ica, and the spider twins had wrecked the place in an all-out battle. I wanted to go back there about as much as I wanted to go to the graveyard. Goosebumps rushed over my skin. I swallowed hard to keep my stretched nerves from strangling my voice.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because there’s something there I want you to see.”

  I nodded. And to get there, we’d have to travel underground. Buried. I gazed down at my hands, so pale and skeletal in the moonlight. I’d clawed my way out of the grave. The mud forever wedged under my fingernails would always remind me of that. But I wouldn’t be buried alive this time. Tram’s tunnels had air I could gulp down, and Tram would be with me. I could do this.

  Right. As soon as Tram hovered a foot over the hole, I freaked. Great, rolling shudders tossed through my stomach and spun through my head. I pressed myself into Tram, gasping into his sweatshirt.

  “Leigh,” Tram said softly, brushing his thumb over my cheeks. “We’re not inside yet. You say the word, and we won’t do this.”

  My heart pinched at the understanding in his words. He knew exactly why I hesitated, and yet he wasn’t judging me. He understood me, more than I understood myself.

  “Nothing will happen to you.” Tram skimmed a comforting hand down my back, and it did help. Some, anyway.

  There wasn’t time to be scared since Gretchen’s cult roamed Krapper and dead things kept coming back. Either I helped fight them or I rolled over and played dead, and I was through playing even if I was dead. Geez, life was getting confusing.

  I took a deep, shaky breath and locked eyes with him. “I’m ready.”

  Tram scrubbed his hands up and down my arms, stopping the goose bumps that still rolled over my skin. “You’re sure?”

  “Yeah.” Kind of.

  A root snaked around my middle and held my body flush with Tram’s. He wove his fingers through my hair to the back of my head.

  “I have you,” he said.

  I brought my mouth close to his, almost within kissing distance. “Good.”

  A car door slammed, and the obvious fury in the noise drove me back some.

  I sawed my teeth over my bottom lip to keep from wincing. “Let’s go.”

  Our gentle progress downward didn’t jar me a bit. The root around my waist melted away and slithered into nothingness. The dark was so complete, it pressed in on my senses, heightening the ones that still worked. Cold seeped through the earth and numbed my fingers and the tip of my nose. Every pull of air tasted rich but clean. Air, the best thing ever below ground.

  Tram swept me up into his arms as his roots creaked and popped a tunnel in front of us. He followed the sounds in a hurry. Dirt bit into my cheeks, so I buried my face into Tram’s neck to inhale his spring-covered scent rather than the heavy smell of earth above our heads. My muffled groan vibrated my lips against Tram’s skin, and he held me tighter.

  “Almost there,” he said into my hair.

  Seconds later, th
e ground inclined, and a hole cracked under the moon and over our heads. Tram’s roots guided him out and set his feet gently on the sidewalk.

  “Next time I’ll carry you,” I said as he put me down.

  Tram chuckled, and the Counselor’s bells followed. Birds squawked and rustled their feathers from their sleeping perches in a spindly tree next to a bar. I squeezed his hand in a warning since we didn’t want the Counselor to get all fist-happy or wake the neighborhood.

  “I’d like to see you try,” he said, his mouth still turned up in a grin.

  A flashing neon sign that read “Beer In Here” cast blues and pinks over our skin. Whaty-Whats would be a few buildings up ahead on Main Street, the only one that dared to be two stories high when most of the rest of Krapper was too scared to go any higher than one. I used to love that about the place; now, it just made my stomach burn with bile.

  “But seriously, though,” I said. “I need to know how to tunnel through the ground.”

  “When you can go down there without hiding your eyes, I’ll show you.”

  Even though his words made me fist my hands, I didn’t think he said them to be mean. He was right.

  “Trammelers are warriors, Leigh, but that doesn’t mean they don’t feel fear. Go ahead and feel it. How could you not after everything you’ve been through? It will sharpen you. It will make you stronger. Even stronger than the twig who wore a Girrrl t-shirt at the graveyard and who refused to listen to me.”

  I barked out a laugh. “I love that shirt.” Even if a giant granny spider did sell it to me. “Is that lesson number one?”

  “That’s the most important lesson. Come on. Let’s go.” He slid his hand around to my back and guided me toward what used to be Whaty-Whats. “I get the feeling Callum has a problem with me.”

  “He has a problem with everyone.”

  “It’s complicated between you two.”

  I sighed. Were we really going to spend our time training with talk about Callum’s likes and dislikes? “Everything’s complicated now.”

  As we approached the store, I glared at the faded wooden sign that punched through the ground with the single word that only hinted at the name: What.