Nightingale's Nest

by Nikki Loftin

  I didn’t know. It seemed like every time I looked up, someone I loved was falling from trees. Was I ever going to get big enough, strong enough, to be able to save them?

  Dad had been proud of me, just a few days before. Because I’d acted like a man.

  How did a man act, though? I remembered Dad scraping and bowing to Mr. King.

  Was that what I had to do, too?

  Or was being a man something other than that?

  When the sun pinked up the sky across the street, I got to my feet. My muscles were tight and sore, but they loosened up as I walked. Water from the hoses on the way to Mr. King’s, and a few pears taken from the tree across the street from the church, and my stomach didn’t hurt quite as much.

  That is, until I got to Mr. King’s house. With my finger on the doorbell, my stomach flipped and slid like a fish on a bank, trying desperately to get back into the water, to escape from the hard gravel-and-sand wrongness of the suffocating ground.

  I almost turned away, but Mom’s voice echoed in my mind. “Where we gonna live?”

  I rang the bell.

  I didn’t expect him to answer right away. But before the bell had stopped echoing inside the great house, the door opened. The Emperor stood there, dressed in a bathrobe, a purple one, with a crown embroidered on the pocket.

  “Oh, good!” he said. “It’s you.” He stepped back. “Come in.” His eyes darted past me, like he was looking for someone else. My dad?

  “Come in,” he repeated. “How did you hear?”

  What was he talking about? “I’m here about a job,” I said slowly, hating each word as it came out. Knowing it was what I had to do, to say, for my family. “I need some money. I’m willing to work.”

  He hesitated. “Work? What kind of work?”

  “Gardening,” I said, wondering what he was going on about. His eyes looked red, bloodshot. Almost like he’d been crying. He waved me into his front hallway, and I smelled something strange. The smell of burning plastic and wiring.

  “Mr. King?” I said. “Do you have an electrical fire?”

  “I did,” he said. “Just last night. I thought—I thought that’s why you were here?”

  “Why would I come over because of a fire?”

  “I called your house. I left a message with your father. Or tried to. He was very rude.” He paused. “I’m sure it’s because of his injury.”

  My mind raced. The Emperor had called? What about? I asked him.

  “Come see,” he said.

  I followed him into the music room. The smell of electrical burning, and damp wood, got stronger with every step. He opened the door, and I gasped.

  Black scorch marks decorated the walls on one side of the room. Two of the black boxes on the recording table in the middle of the room had melted, almost.

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure, but I have my suspicions. I was away for the day. I called a tree man out to . . . finish the job your father started for me.” I looked away, wondering if the tree guy had told him what he’d said to me. That Dad had messed up his orchard.

  “You think he started the fire?”

  “Not intentionally, no,” Mr. King said. “A branch hit a line. The power to the whole house was affected. There was a problem with the wiring.

  “I can’t believe it’s gone,” he said. “I only had it for a few days. And now I’ll have to record it all over again.” He kept touching the burned knobs and dials like he could rewind the fire that had melted them all.

  “I’m sorry about the fire. But I came for a job. I need money,” I said. “We’re going to be evicted if I can’t get five hundred dollars.”

  “What?” His head jerked up.

  “Money,” I said. “I need to earn some money.”

  At the word money, he smiled. “Money? Yes, of course, you can have another five hundred dollars. More, if you can get her to sing twice.” His eyes lit up. “I would pay a thousand for two songs. I’ll record it on my new computer. Bought one in the city yesterday. This time I’ll store the recordings in some sort of external backup . . .” He went on, talking faster and faster, like a wind-up doll that had been given one crank too many, while I stared.

  Get her to sing?

  Wait. He was talking about Gayle. I took a step back, and he reached for me, his fingernails scraping my arm. He thought I was going to bring Gayle back to him to do—whatever he had done that had changed her? He thought there was any amount of money in the world that could make me even consider that?

  I wanted to punch him in the face. I wanted to watch him bleed all over the floor. But I couldn’t. I was here for a reason.

  I was here for a job.

  For a moment, I remembered the way Dad’s eyes had flashed with hatred for this man every time he’d said his name. And how Dad had gone, anyway, every day, to work for him. So Mom and I would have food, and a house to live in.

  The Jack Daniels? It was probably the only way he could stand the thought of going back every Monday.

  I wished I had a drink of it myself, right then.

  My stomach lurched, and I was afraid I was about to spew all over the Emperor’s slippers. “Wait up,” I said. “I’m not here about Gayle.” I stopped myself before I said what I was thinking—I would never, ever bring her back in this house—and finished. “I’m here to work on your garden.”

  The Emperor’s face changed again. “I have a gardener,” he said slowly. “What I don’t have—anymore—is a recording of your little friend’s voice. And I must have that voice.”

  “Too bad,” I said, hoping it didn’t show in my voice that I thought he deserved to lose that recording—and worse.

  “I said I’ll pay you,” he repeated. “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to get her to sing for me again.”

  “No, never,” I said, backing up a few more steps before I spun on my heel and made my way to the front porch. I turned my head back once my feet hit the porch step, hoping he wasn’t behind me, but he was. I repeated myself, louder. “Never again.”

  He followed me down, his eyes practically bugging out of his head. “You don’t understand. Her voice—that voice is the only thing that makes me feel . . . happy.” He paused. “At peace.”

  “No,” I repeated, remembering Gayle with that half-melted stick of candy in her hand, that broken expression on her face. Remembering her head, bald in so many places. The pain in her eyes.

  There was pain in the Emperor’s eyes, too, but I ignored it. “No, sir,” I said. “You hurt her. And there ain’t enough money in every Emporium in the world to get me to bring her near you again.”

  “I’ve been near her, you idiot,” he shouted. “The Cutlins brought her over this morning. But they couldn’t get her to sing! I need her voice.”

  “You took that from her,” I said, and my voice sounded like breaking glass. “With what you did. You just stay away from her. Haven’t you done enough?”

  “But—you have to!” the man cried out, grabbing at me as I backed down the porch stairs. “You don’t understand! I—” His voice broke, like he was going to cry. “I promise—I want nothing else. If I can just hear her sing again, that innocence, that sweet, pure voice . . .”

  His words were like a cloud of poison gas between us. I had to get away from him before I breathed it in, forgot myself, and killed him with my bare hands. I ran, feeling his fingers peel off me. When I was halfway across the lawn, I turned to see him kneeling on the steps. I almost stopped. It looked like something was wrong with him. He was clutching at his shoulder, his left arm pressed up against his chest like it was paralyzed. “Get—back—here!” I heard him yell. His voice sounded weaker—maybe because I was far enough away. He had no power over me.

  He looked broken, kneeling there. As broken as Gayle. As broken as my dad.

  I slowed down w
hen I got out to the road. The black dog that had been hanging around all summer was running in the ditch, steady and sure, back the same way I’d come. It didn’t even turn its head to look at me, just loped faster with every step. Like it was late for an appointment, or something. Like it had a meeting with the Emperor.

  I hoped it bit him, right on the face. I hoped it tore out whatever tiny scrap of coal the man had for a heart, and ate it in front of him.

  I ran home, stopping on the porch. The smell of cooking bacon and cinnamon rolls drifted through the screen. My stomach growled.

  For some reason, the house didn’t feel like home anymore. Was it my home? Dad had told me not to come back until I had the money.

  Had he meant it?

  “Boy?” I heard a voice from inside. “Get in here.” I waited, wondering why he was calling. To yell at me? Was he planning to punish me more? I didn’t know if I could take it. I pressed my hand up to my heart, felt it thump-da-dump in agreement.

  But then Dad said, “Come on now. Breakfast,” and I knew. It was going to be all right, somehow.

  Somehow.

  “We got a call,” Mom said, while I was eating my second plate full of bacon and my fourth cinnamon roll. They were the ones Isabelle and Ernest’s mom had made, I knew. I recognized the recipe—and her cinnamon-roll tray—from the church potlucks. They must have come by that morning, while I was out. I opened the fridge to look for something to drink and saw they’d filled it, too. Mom sure hadn’t bought all those name-brand juices and milks. I swallowed a lump of cinnamon roll, washed it down with Tropicana Pure Premium, and asked, “Who called?”

  Dad answered from the other room. “A customer,” he said, and coughed. “They got a job for us.”

  Mom looked worried. She laid a hand on my arm. “It would be for you, mostly,” she said. “Your dad isn’t cleared to lift anything, or work just yet.”

  I got it, then. They weren’t going to bring up the missing money, as long as I did what needed to be done to make it right. My heart ached, swelling with gratitude. Somehow, I was getting another chance. “I . . . I’ll try my best, Dad.”

  “I can tell you what to do,” he called. “Teach you. You’re strong enough to fill in for your old man for a couple of days, that’s for sure. Plenty strong.”

  “What kind of a job?” I asked around a mouthful of bacon. The neighbors and church folks were obviously already taking care of us, with the food and rides to the hospital. Maybe Mom had let one of them know about our eviction notice. I bet some of the congregation members had come up with some “emergency brush clearing” that needed me and my dad. My guess is that the pay would be exactly five hundred dollars. Exactly what we needed to make rent.

  I was right, almost. “It’s taking down a tree,” Dad said from the other room. “Just one. But they’re paying five hundred and fifty dollars.”

  “That’s a lot,” I said. I felt a little shaky at the thought of cutting down a tree by myself. I set down my fork, carried my plate to the sink, and went in to see Dad. Mom was sitting right by him, unwrapping the bandages from his arm. I tried not to look at whatever was underneath all those layers of white, but I could see bloodstains showing up as she unrolled.

  “Well, I told them we’d till up the soil for the garden, too, and work on some of the other trees they got. In the next few weeks.”

  I turned away, fiddling with my shoelace. “You think I can cut a tree by myself?” I’d only ever used the chain saw on small stuff, saplings and junk cedars. And sometimes, the saw had gotten stuck on a bigger cedar, and I’d had to call Dad to come to my rescue and work it loose. I peeked at his face; it looked like he was remembering those same times. But he didn’t say anything. Didn’t come to my rescue this time.

  He just mumbled, “Yep.”

  I was scared, but I knew—this was what I had to do to keep a roof over our heads. To make sure Mom didn’t have to wonder where we were going to live. To make Dad proud of me again. I swallowed. “When?”

  “Tomorrow,” Dad said. “I called the landlord. He’ll give us that long to get the rent in.”

  “Where’s the job?” I asked.

  With the way things had been going, his answer shouldn’t have surprised me. But stupid as I was, I had thought things couldn’t get any worse than they were.

  “The Cutlins’,” Dad answered. “We’re going to take out that sycamore so Verlie Cutlin can have her garden.”

  I didn’t say anything for a while. I listened to Mom unwrapping his bandages, putting new ones on, coaxing him to take his pills. Mopping up when he dribbled water down his front. I didn’t turn around; I didn’t want them to see my face.

  “Mom?” I said after a while, and stood. “I need to go out.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Don’t be late. I’m going to try to move your dad into the bedroom. I may need some help.”

  I looked down at the top of her head. The part was perfectly straight, as usual. But the hairs coming out from it weren’t light brown, like I always remembered. They were salt-and-pepper gray and brown. Had that happened in the past week? Or had I just not noticed she had been getting older, sadder, every day for months now?

  I wondered if my hair had started to go gray, too. I sure had felt enough misery to make it that way.

  I wanted to sit on her lap, curl up like a little boy, and tell her why I couldn’t cut down Gayle’s sycamore. Tell her all the things I’d done, the thing the Emperor had done, to that girl. I wanted to take Mom by the hand and lead her up to the tree, have her listen to Gayle sing.

  But I didn’t say a word. I remembered a thought I’d had weeks before: I would eat ground glass if it would make Mom better.

  I still would, I knew. But the thing was—eating glass wouldn’t hurt anyone but me. Cutting down that tree?

  That was going to kill Gayle.

  I had to talk to her.

  “I’ll be back for supper,” I said, and kissed the top of Mom’s head, right where the gray hairs fountained out the most. “I promise.”

  Not that my promises counted for a lick, of course.

  When I got to the Cutlins’, Jeb was out in the yard. He saw me coming and walked over to the side of the house to pick up a big stick. Smart, I thought. But I held up both hands. “I’m not here for trouble,” I said. “I just need to get a look at the tree.”

  “The one your dad and you are going to take out?” he asked. “Funny how two weeks ago, your dad wouldn’t touch the job for less than seven hundred. But now he’ll do it for five and a half.” He spat on the ground, reminding me of his mom. “Guess things have changed.”

  “Yeah,” I said, my mind flickering across all the changes that had taken place over the past few weeks. “They have.”

  “Well, go on back,” Jeb said, letting his stick fall against his side. He seemed almost disappointed I wasn’t going to fight him. I didn’t know how to tell him I didn’t have any fight left. I felt like I’d already been beaten, over and over, with a stick the size of the whole world.

  There were no birds in the backyard. Not a single grackle or crow, not even a hummingbird zipping past on its way to one of Mr. King’s feeders.

  Except for one small Nightingale. And from what I could see, her hair was all cut—or shaved?—off.

  She was sitting in the top of the sycamore tree, her eyes on the sky. I wondered what she was looking at; there wasn’t a cloud in sight. I made sure to step on some dry leaves, so she would hear me coming. I didn’t want to startle her.

  She didn’t move, didn’t even look down when I called up. “Hey, Gayle. You all right?”

  A small huff of sound—was it a laugh?—broke the still, hot air. “No,” she said.

  “Come down?” I asked, not sure where to start. But I knew I didn’t want her up there, in the boughs, when I told her the news. “Please?”

  I w
atched as she slowly unfolded her legs and started the long climb down. Every step was tentative, like she didn’t trust her tree anymore. Every handhold she took on a branch, she tested twice. She even stopped once and looked at the ground, like she was afraid.

  I’d never seen her look afraid when she was in her tree.

  Finally, she landed on the ground next to me, her knees buckling. Mulch and bits of leaves came up in a small cloud around her feet, making her cough. I kneeled down next to her.

  “I’m sorry about your nest,” I said. “I wish I could have been here to protect it.”

  She didn’t speak, just nodded. I looked down at the top of her head, at the bald scalp that looked so much like a baby bird’s. I could almost see the veins through the stubble. I could see scratches, scraped places where either the razor or her own fingers had burned the skin.

  “Oh, Gayle,” I said, reaching out to pat her head, feel that soft hair—what was left of it—under my fingers. “What happened to you?”

  “Tree!” She sobbed, and thrust herself against me, her arms wrapping around my legs, knocking me over into the dirty mulch with her. I tasted the bitterness of dead leaves on my tongue, swallowed the dust down until I coughed, too. She didn’t say anything else, just let me hold her.

  “Shhh,” I whispered. “Shh.”

  Her whole body shook so hard, I was afraid she was having a seizure. How could I add anything more to her sadness?

  But I had to tell her. Had to warn her, so it wouldn’t take her by surprise. That would be worse.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said after a few seconds. “Something bad.”

  She still didn’t speak. But she raised one thin shoulder and let it fall, like she was ready for me to get on with it.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” I said, trying to find the right words. “And I don’t expect you’ll ever forgive me. I won’t blame you, Gayle. Not one bit.” Her shaking stopped, like she was holding her breath, holding still for the final blow.