by Natalie Reid
As she cleaned his hand, Aaron stared blankly at the bathroom counter. His finger absently traced the simple pattern of lines that had been etched into the sink. For the third time that night, she knew he was somewhere else, in a dirty apartment room with his mother and the black that had taken over her.
“It doesn’t feel so bad, you know,” she whispered. “The Black. When it takes you. You feel sort of heavy, like you’ve been holding off sleep for a long time.”
“Jessie, you don’t have to—”
“Sorry,” she muttered quickly. “I know you don’t like to talk about it.”
She knew very well that Aaron never spoke about his past. In fact, before his life on the air-base, she scarcely knew anything about him. She was about to leave when he reached for her arm and held her back.
“That’s not what I meant,” he said softly, making her pulse thunder in her ears. “I mean you don’t have to say anything to try and make me feel better. Just being near you is enough.”
He stared earnestly at her, and she began to grow uncomfortable under his gaze. She nodded and looked away, and for the rest of the night, she found that anytime she caught him looking at her, she grew even more anxious. Aaron had always been sweet and caring with her before, but ever since her accident, things between them had felt a little different. Before, she might have considered it a good thing, but now she just wished for things to go back to normal.
Chapter 11
The Finch
The next day, Jessie arrived back at Rosie’s apartment as promised. Rosie asked her to move some old furniture out of their living-room, take it outside, and break it down so that it could be thrown away or used for fire. The next day she had her running errands to go buy food and patch up some of Mick’s clothes. Pretty soon, others started catching on and began asking for help with their chores as well. Each day Jessie went back to that neighborhood, and each day was filled with household cleaning, heavy lifting, and errand running.
Before long, she was the hardest worker in the neighborhood—apart from Katherine. Jessie would see Katherine often, doing one chore or another, going silently about her work and never stopping to speak to anyone. Jessie had tried to start a few conversations with her whenever she caught her outdoors, but she was never in the mood to talk. It seemed as if she closed herself off to everyone, and became extremely agitated whenever Jessie would not comply with this unspoken code.
One day, the landlord of Katherine’s building, a gruff yet tired man that had no wife or family, asked Jessie to clean the attic. This was a task that she had been waiting for since she had started to offer her services. She had managed to visit Ben a couple of times in the week, sneak into BLES with her unrestricted key and a little bit of cunning, but he seemed sadder now that she was no longer able to visit him regularly. He tried to hide it when she was with him, but she could see that the energy was going from his eyes. She wanted desperately to bring something to cheer him up, something to get him to hold on until she could convince Katherine to take him back. The bird in the attic seemed the best way to do that.
When she climbed up the dusty attic stairs, she could already hear the faint flutterings of the bird’s wings. The attic itself was dark, save for a few beams of light slipping through the broken vent at the top peak of the roof. The light illuminated the vast amount of dust and captured snow that drifted and hung in the air. On the ground were several metal storage boxes, a few broken down pieces of furniture, and oddly enough, an array of Aero Spring Festival decorations. This came as a shock to her, because it seemed as if the inhabitants of this building were far too tired and defeated to have ever taken part in the Aero Spring Parade.
She put that thought off to the side as she dug into her pocket and procured a slice of bread. Looking up to the ceiling, she whistled and tried to see where the bird was hiding. Light flickered from above, and she saw the bird with the red chest fly to one of the wooden beams. Upon seeing the bird in person, a memory replayed in her mind. She was sitting in her old house with her mom, looking out the window. It was early autumn, and the wheat field near their house was strong and golden, casting shadows and light on the walls of their home as the breeze blew the stocks in gentle waves. There had been a bird outside, picking at a few of the grains that had fallen on the ground. It had looked just like Ben’s bird; commonly gray on the back, but with a bright red chest on the front. Her mom had called it a finch. It was one of the few birds left that had survived the Contamination.
As Jessie got to work cleaning the attic, she was careful not to come too close to the corner that she had left the slice of bread. Nearly half an hour of dusting and sweeping went by, and finally the finch wandered down from the rafters and pecked at the bread.
When the light coming through the top window was just low enough to signal that sun-set was not far away, Jessie decided to call it a day. She looked up to a darkened corner and could make out the scruffy outline of the little finch. She walked carefully to the attic door, moving slowly so she wouldn’t spook the bird, and lowered down the ladder. As she climbed down, she whistled out a short little tune, as if saying goodbye to the finch.
Reaching the bottom of the ladder, she sensed that someone was in the hallway behind her, and turned her head to see. Standing there, holding a raggedy piece of cloth and wearing a lost expression on her face, was Katherine. She stared up at the open attic door, and then down at Jessie.
“Why were you whistling just now?” she asked.
Jessie’s face softened, and she took a slow step forward, treating Katherine much like the wary bird a few feet above them. She knew that she must have reminded her of Ben, and her heart filled with hope, realizing that this was her opportunity to finally speak with Katherine.
“You have something very special up in your attic. There’s a little bird flying in between the rafters. I was trying to sing to him.”
“It can’t understand you,” she said gruffly.
Her words sent a stab of pain to Jessie’s chest, and in that moment she felt as if she could hate Katherine. Not for her words, but for what she was doing to Ben, for the way she treated his life and hers. But in her mind, a voice whispered a long kept promise, entreating her to look past the marred outer shell to the person behind, urging her to see the hurt in her eyes and the loneliness that shook in her bones. Jessie had made a promise to her mom to treat everyone as special, and that promise was as constant in her mind as the incessant pulse that pressed against her wrist.
“He understands more than you might think,” she said, keeping a kind tone in her voice and chancing a step towards Katherine.
The older lady had been about to turn around, when she stopped and looked at the young pilot as if she had just voiced a well-kept secret.
“Birds know when someone’s trying to help them,” Jessie continued. “They can remember faces; remember who threw a rock at them or shooed them away or…who gave up a scrap of their bread to feed them.”
Katherine looked down to the rag in her hands. “Sounds like a child’s tale.”
“My mom told it to me,” she said, smiling as she pictured her golden face in her mind, framed by billowing stalks of wheat and dewy autumn grass. “And I believe everything she said.”
Katherine started to leave, making for the apartment door that was just a few steps away, but she called out to stop her.
“Katherine, wait.”
Katherine did not turn around as she faced her door. The gray raggedy cloth was gripped in her hands so tightly it almost melded together with her fingers. Though she was no more than ten years older than Jessie, her hands had become old, worn and wrinkled. Jessie stared at them as if each crease and fold told the story of how she got here, told the story that Ben would not dare utter, save for the silent pleas in his unwavering stares.
“I… I know,” Jessie started. “I know why—”
Katherine turned her head sharply. “You don’t know anything! You haven’t even begun to know…”
Her lungs took in a sharp breath, trying to shove down the tears from ever making it out of her throat.
“You have to talk to someone about it,” Jessie urged quietly. Her hand came up, as if to hold Katherine’s arm for comfort, but her instincts told her not to.
“About what?” she demanded. “Talk to someone about what?” Her eyes flashed in anger, but the moisture that built up in them betrayed her desperation. Katherine held the rag up to Jessie’s face and shook it. “About this? Talk to them about rags? About scrubbing dirt, scraping a dried up piece of soap on a broken washboard every morning, cleaning the same raggedy dress and pants, pricking your finger on the same dull needle to try and keep it all together, working yourself to the bone every day and still not having enough food to feed…” She took in a gasping deep breath and placed a quivering hand over her mouth.
“Your son.”
Jessie had said the words so quietly that she wasn’t sure if Katherine had even heard them. But her face tilted up to hers in an expression of pain that Jessie had never seen the like. Katherine took her hand away from her mouth and looked as if she was about to turn around, when she lunged a frail fist at Jessie’s shoulder. Jessie looked down at it, but did not move. Katherine let out an anguished whimper as the fist with the rag balled up between her fingers came at Jessie, hitting her in the arm.
At first, Jessie didn’t know what to do but let herself be hit. Then Katherine’s punches were lighter and lighter, and her screaming sounded more like sobs. As the woman continued to beat her, Jessie took a careful step forward and tried to draw the woman to her chest. Katherine’s arms still twitched in a vain attempt to hit her, but she allowed herself to be guided into Jessie’s hug.
“Ten years and I still couldn’t do it!” she sobbed out. “I couldn’t take the hunger! I was so… empty.”
Jessie wanted to tell her that Ben was hungry too, that he was even more empty because of her decision and needed to be taken back, but she just didn’t have the heart to say it. So she rubbed her hand on Katherine’s back and rocked her from side to side. They stayed like that for a few moments, when a pair of footsteps came up the stairs.
Rosie’s head popped up on the other end of the hallway, with Mick’s following a step or two behind.
“Is everything alright up here?” Rosie asked.
Katherine suddenly jumped away and hurried to get into her apartment. Her hands fumbled with the knob, but once the door was open, she rushed inside and slammed the door behind her. Jessie stared at it in deep sorrow before turning out to the hallway.
“Everything’s fine Rosie,” she told the woman.
Rosie pursed her lips in a downcast expression. “No. I’m afraid everything is not fine.” She shook her head sadly and then turned around and ushered her son back down the stairs.
When Jessie left the east-end neighborhood that day, she tried to get the broken image of Katherine out of her mind. It hurt her to see someone in so much suffering. It called out to her to do something about it. Save her, it told her. But she had no more idea of how to save her than of how she could save Ben. She was stumbling through motions, grasping at impossible hopes and wishing for the best. She didn’t know what she was doing. She had first come to that neighborhood to convince Katherine of the right thing to do, yet all she could really do was stand there like a punching bag, absorbing the dying blows of a woman that had already given up.
The next day, she came back up to the attic like before, but this time Katherine made sure to stay in her room. When she walked by her door on the way out, Jessie could have sworn she heard the creak of a floor-board by the door, as if she had been listening for her to pass. Jessie contemplated knocking, but she didn’t think Katherine would open up, and she had no idea what she would say if she did, so she kept on going down the hall.
As she was walking back through the streets, she tried to set her mind on more achievable goals. She began to wonder how she would catch the bird and bring it to Ben. She thought she might be able to trick it into a box, but keeping it shut up in an enclosed space just seemed so heartless. It wouldn’t have made Ben happy to know that his bird had been treated cruelly in order to get him there.
Frustration surged through her mind as she disregarded every possible solution she could come up with. She wasn’t solving this problem anymore than she was solving the one with Katherine.
On the street in front of her, a can rustled in the wind and knocked into the sidewalk curb. She ran forward to kick it, and the can came up in an angry fury and smacked into the side of a building. She glanced up at the building in brief disinterest. It was a repair shop of some kind. However, a small sign in the window caught her attention. It read: AMATEUR INVENTIONS SOLD HERE.
She stopped walking and really looked at the shop. There were several computer monitors in the store window, along with appliances and other gadgets, a few that she had never even seen before. Deciding that it couldn’t hurt to look, she stepped inside.
There was a desk at the far end of the room, and a middle-aged man sat behind it, twisting a small tool inside of a microwave. When Jessie came in, he looked up from his work and asked, “Can I help you?”
“Uh…” She took a quick look around. “You don’t have anything for catching birds, do you? I know, it’s a pretty strange request, but…”
She stopped when she realized that the man was laughing. It was a quiet laugh that was masked behind the scratch in his voice. She guessed that he probably had a bad cough.
“It’s funny you should ask,” he said. “I told my assistant that no one would ever want to buy it.” He stood up and put his tool down. “He makes all kinds of inventions. Most of them are junk. Occasionally he creates something of value. I let him advertise them in my shop to make him feel better. But I never thought that one day someone would actually ask for this.”
The man went behind another desk in the corner and pulled out a small metal cage that was no more than six inches high and four inches across.
“Here we are,” he said, handing it to her. “He called it a bird cage. Says he read about it in one of the old books I have in back.” He touched a finger to his nose, indicating that it was a secret. “He’s always finding out about some oddity that existed before the Contamination.” The man shrugged his shoulders. “I told him that most people never even see a bird, let alone would have the opportunity to cage one. But…” He placed his hand on the top of the cage, and curled his fingers around the nob on top. “He’s still a bright kid. Look.”
He slowly pulled on the nob, and the cage began to expand. It rose to nearly a foot and a half before there was a small clicking noise and the cage locked in place.
“Amazing,” Jessie said. “Where’d he learn to do that?”
The man chuckled again. “That boy’s mind is a creation all of its own doing.”
Jessie asked for the price, and graciously paid for it, leaving extra and telling the man to give it to his assistant with her deepest thanks. She shrunk the cage down to size and turned to go, when a man entered the shop, standing squarely in the doorway and blocking her exit. This man had short black hair, a stubborn jaw, and was wearing the crest of the government Task Force on the lapel of his jacket.
It seemed as if he was not there to repair a broken toaster or to shoot the breeze with the owner. He was staring right at her and smiling in a manner that did nothing to ease Jessie’s mind. She was wearing her military uniform, and since he was with Task Force, that meant trouble ten times out of ten.
She didn’t begin to realize how much trouble until he took a step towards her, saying with a shake of his head, “Jessie Fifty-Fifty.”
She held his gaze firmly. She did not ask how he knew who she was. It would only give him more satisfaction, and she knew he was already going to tell her anyway.
“You know, I was sent to go get you nearly ten years ago,” he said. “The President of Aero City himself gave the call.”
Jessie remained silent as he to
ok a few more steps towards her.
“My name’s Ritter.” He sniffed and stuffed his hands in his pockets to let her know that he wasn’t going to shake her hand.
“I know,” she lied. She didn’t know who the man was when he stepped inside the shop, but she had heard of the name Ritter before. Of all the agents on the Task Force to be afraid of, Ritter was the one people knew to fear the most.
He raised his eyebrows at her. “I’ve been hearing stories lately…about a military soldier hanging around a neighborhood on the east end, doing jobs for them, running errands, shining shoes.”
“Do you have something to say to me?” she asked abruptly. “You obviously followed me here, so you must have something to say.”
He clicked his tongue and cocked his head to the side. With a flick of his chin, he gestured to the cage in her hand. “What have you got there?”
“It’s a present for a boy,” she answered plainly.
“Interesting present.”
“He’s an interesting boy.”
Ritter shook his head. “You’re a racking piece of work, you know that?”
She stiffened her jaw at his use of language, and he narrowed his eyes upon seeing her reaction.
“What? Bit of a sore subject? With you almost getting racked and all. It must be hard when your humanity is thrown into question like that.”
Her eyes flicked back to the shop owner as Ritter said this. She could see the man stiffen. His tool continued to click on the broken microwave he was working on, but she knew that he was paying close attention to their conversation, hoping that he didn’t have a serious problem brewing in his shop. Ritter had just as good as called her a Bandit. He was challenging her to fight back, but she wouldn’t bite.
“That neighborhood you’re visiting,” he commented smoothly, “you don’t happen to see any stragglers around?”
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you asking me for help in doing your job?” She shook her head. “I haven’t seen any Resistance. But living on a base eighteen thousand feet up in the air, I’m not likely to know what they’d look like, am I?”