Nightingale's Nest

by Nikki Loftin

  And those three trees were the ones all the birds in the kingdom were perched on, singing their hearts out. I saw a shadow move in one of them, too big to be a bird.

  “Gayle?” I called out. “That you?”

  The birds flew off. A few of them flew toward me, like they were dive-bombing a cat that was stalking their nest. One of the mockingbirds came back for three passes before I swatted at him and he lit off for the fence.

  I stopped at the base of the red oak. “Gayle? I brought you something.” I could see her shivering in the cool morning air. “Come on down,” I said.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Please,” I tried again. “I have something to show you.”

  “Go home, Little John,” she said after a few seconds. “You make me sad.”

  “I’m sorry,” I answered. “I know I hurt you. I broke my promises.”

  “You killed my tree,” she said after a few seconds of silence. “My friend. I didn’t think you’d really do it.”

  “I had to.”

  A bird perched in the cedar elm mocked me with a whistle that sounded just like what I had said: had-to, had-to, had-to. Gayle made a shushing sound toward it, and it stopped.

  “I know,” she said. “I know all that. But it doesn’t fix it.” She sniffled.

  She was right. Nothing I could do would fix anything.

  “You won’t come down?” I asked.

  “I gotta look for my mom and dad,” she said. “They told me if I ever got lost, to find my tree, and wait in my—my nest.” She sniffled again, remembering what had happened to her nest, I supposed. “And they would come for me. They said they would never stop looking until they found me.”

  She was still talking about her parents like they weren’t dead. I didn’t care, I decided. I played along with Mom through all her crazy talk about Raelynn. Everybody had to learn how to deal with death in their own way. If Gayle had to think she was some sort of bird, I didn’t mind. I just didn’t want her to be sad. “They’ll see you up there, Gayle. Don’t worry.”

  “No, they won’t,” she said. Her voice was so full of hopelessness, I couldn’t stand it.

  “Why not?”

  “My tree’s gone. And so is my nest.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” I said. “Are you going to come down or not?”

  “Not.”

  “Fine, then,” I said, mostly to myself. I had known it would come to this, known the minute I saw her up in that tree, shivering and alone. “Time to man up.”

  I set my hand on the lowest crook in the tree, took the plastic grocery-bag handles between my teeth, and tried not to think about what I was doing.

  A few pulls, a few unsteady steps, and I was standing in the crook of the oak, only a few feet below Gayle. I tried not to look down, knowing if I did, I would be sick, knowing I would remember what had happened to Raelynn—the fear that would freeze me. My mouth was dry as bone around the plastic handles, my palms slick and sweaty with fear. I took another step, and a piece of bark broke off the trunk and hurtled toward the ground. I closed my eyes and took a breath. When I opened them, I made myself look up, not down, and pulled myself to the branch where Gayle was sitting, the only branch up high that was sturdy enough to hold a kid.

  I kept my weight off the branch as best I could, so it wouldn’t break under her weight and mine. My heart pounded so hard it sounded like I’d eaten a woodpecker for breakfast. I was as scared as I’d ever been in my life.

  “Little John?” Gayle’s lips quirked up as she turned on the branch. I tried not to yell for her to be still, to be careful. The handles in my mouth helped keep the words in, though. I didn’t want to drop the bag. “Little John,” she said, scooching closer to me. “You’re bald!”

  I forced a smile around the handles, and muttered, “So are you.”

  She ran a hand over the top of my head, feeling the uneven stubble there. “We match,” she said, and giggled. “Your head looks like an egg.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Where’s your hair, Little John?”

  Making sure my feet were firmly wedged into the crooks of the branch and trunk, I let go my death grip on one hand and took the bag out from between my teeth. “I made you something.”

  She took it carefully, like it might be a sack full of snakes or scorpions. “What is it?”

  I smiled, wondering for the hundredth time if she would understand. “Treasure.”

  She frowned and tried to hand the bag back, but I gently pushed it over to her again. “Real treasure this time,” I said. “Open it.”

  After a few more seconds, she did and pulled out what was inside.

  I was amazed I didn’t fall, what with her launching herself off the branch to hug me. But we stayed there, swaying for a few seconds, until I could breathe again. “Can we climb down now?” I asked. “Because I’m scared out of my mind up here.”

  Gayle laughed and shook her head. “We’re only a little ways off the ground!” I looked down. “You’re practically tall enough to reach, if you lower yourself down.”

  “Huh,” I said. “You’re right.” I lowered myself by my arms from the crook of the branch and realized what she’d said was true. My feet were no more than ten inches off the ground. I let go, and landed softly.

  “Well, that’s embarrassing,” I said and looked up. “I guess I forgot I was a giant now.”

  Gayle giggled, hugged my gift to her chest, and yelled one word. “Catch!”

  Then she jumped, like a baby bird tumbling out of a nest.

  And I caught her.

  Gayle opened the bag faster than a kid on Christmas morning. “It’s the most beautiful thing I ever imagined,” she said, sitting next to me. I ignored the damp ground under my shorts, the sounds of the birds all around us, overhead now— everything but Gayle and the nest she cradled. She pushed against me and held the small nest up. It was only about eight inches across, woven of pipe cleaners, twigs, and a few other things. But Gayle treasured it already.

  “A treasure nest,” I said. “Want me to tell you about it?”

  “Yes.”

  I reached over her arm and pointed. “I made it out of sticks from a tree in my backyard,” I began, then stopped. Should I tell her which tree? But she guessed.

  “Your little sister’s tree?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one. She loved that tree.”

  I cleared my throat. “Those are pipe cleaners from my next-door neighbor’s little sister, Isabelle. She was Raelynn’s best friend. They used to make pipe-cleaner animals, all sorts of stuff. They loved crafts.”

  “And the ribbons?” She stroked the colorful fabric that wove in and out of the pipe cleaners.

  “Raelynn’s hair ribbons. She had really long hair, and Mom used to braid it every day.” We both stopped, and Gayle picked up the three stones that lay inside, instead of eggs.

  “They’re diamonds,” she said, holding one up to the light.

  “No,” I said. “Those are smoky quartz. My dad gave those to me when I was five. I used to collect rocks. One day I decided I was too old for collecting things, and I threw them out. Dumb, right? My best friend Ernest found these three and gave them back to me last year.”

  Gayle stroked the inside of the now-empty nest. “And you made it soft,” she said.

  Her fingers ran over the silky lining of the nest. Then she reached up and touched my stubbled head.

  “Well, I didn’t want you to be the only bald kid in town,” I said, settling the rocks back on the bed I had made for them out of my hair. Then I ran my own fingers over the stubble left on my head. I wondered what Mom would think when she saw it. She’d hate it. Dad, though? He’d probably think I was trying to look like a Marine or something.

  It didn’t matter what they thought. “It’s just hair. Anyway, I needed it. Had to feather y
our nest, and I don’t have real feathers. I don’t think.” I pretended to check my arms and legs, flapping my arms like I might take flight.

  A giggle. “Thanks.”

  Gayle stood up slowly and walked toward the sycamore stump. When she reached it, she settled the nest on the top of the stump. The backyard quiet of insects and birdsong, of rustling leaves and dropping seedpods, filled the space between us.

  “If I were bigger,” she said, “I could fix everything. I could fix your mom and dad, and my tree, even. Maybe.” She sighed. “But I’m too small. And everything’s so broken.”

  When she said the word broken, every bird in the Cutlins’ backyard flew up in a great swirl, like a curtain being lifted into the sky. I was watching their wings flashing in unison, so I didn’t see what made Gayle cry out. But when I looked back, I saw him.

  It was the Emperor. Or at least, it was his head.

  He was on the other side of the fence, obviously up on a stepladder or chair. His face was red and sweaty, even in the cool morning. His hair hadn’t been combed, and it stuck out in a half dozen directions, like the pinfeathers of a turkey vulture.

  Gayle had scooted off the sycamore trunk and taken her nest into her arms like it was some sort of shield.

  “I’m sorry to startle you,” the Emperor said in a small voice. “It’s just—I heard you talking, and I thought maybe you would sing—” He broke off, coughing and gasping.

  I started to tell him where he could go. “Get the he—” but Gayle stopped me.

  “I won’t sing for you,” she said. “You’re a bad man.”

  The Emperor coughed for a few more moments, his head disappearing. When I saw his face again, he looked terrible. Pale and red splotches spread across his face, like his blood wasn’t flowing right. I remembered what Mom had said. He was dying.

  I wanted to think Good. But looking at him, his face covered with tears, his eyes blood-shot and desperate, I couldn’t muster up anything but pity and disgust. “You need to go home,” I said, walking over to Gayle and pushing her gently behind my back so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “You got no business here.”

  “Little John,” he gasped, his eyes darting around like a bird in a cage, trying to find some way out. “I told you, I have to hear her sing. Just once, just once more. I’ll pay you—I’ll pay you two thousand dollars. Three!” he almost shouted as I shook my head slowly. His voice got hard. “Your family needs that money. You’re going to have doctor bills I won’t cover. And your dad can’t work. What’s going to happen to you then? All I’m asking is for you to bring her over one last time.”

  I could feel Gayle behind me, her hands woven into my T-shirt. “Three thousand dollars?” I asked, my voice dropping lower, then lower. “Three thousand dollars?”

  “Yessss,” he hissed, slipping again so his head dipped then came back up, a drowning man grasping at a passing branch. “Or more.”

  “Three thousand dollars,” I repeated one last time. “You don’t understand, Mr. King.” I put my hands behind me, felt the soft stubble of Gayle’s hair, calmed her shivering with a pat. “There’s no amount of money in the world you could offer that would tempt me. Nothing in the world—not in every Emporium in the country—that would get me to ask her to be in the same room with you.”

  “But—” His eyes bulged, frog-like. “But—I’m dying,” he said, his voice as full of defeat as any I’d ever heard. “I’m dying, you see. And I have to hear her—just once more.”

  “No,” I said. I felt Gayle quivering behind me. “I’m sorry about that, but you can’t ever be around Gayle. Never.”

  Gayle’s arms wrapped around me, and she murmured a small “Thank you, Tree.”

  “You’re welcome,” I whispered back. I turned to take her to the Cutlins’, when I heard the clatter and thump of someone falling.

  The Emperor.

  A thready voice, a wheeze of pain. And then—“Help!”

  Gayle kept walking. I paused, wondering what I should do. He was alone. There was no one else around to hear his cries.

  I had wanted him to die, planned on helping him get there myself a few days before. But now, with him gasping for help on the other side of the fence, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk away. Not even if he deserved it.

  “Gayle, wait a sec,” I said. “Stay here.”

  I ran to the fence and pushed myself up so I could see over.

  The Emperor lay there, sprawling in his purple bathrobe, bare legs poking out like broken branches, arms clutching at his chest. There was blood on his chin—scratches from the fence or from falling. A chair lay to one side, its feet slicked with damp grass and earth. His eye found me. “Help!” he breathed.

  I pushed myself up and vaulted over the fence. “Should I call 911?” I asked. He was having another heart attack, maybe. “Get the ambulance?”

  His hand snaked out and wrapped around my wrist, hard. He couldn’t answer, it looked like—his jaw was working, but no words came out. “Gayle,” I shouted. “Go get Mrs. Cutlin to call 911.”

  “Okay,” I heard, then the crunch of leaves and grass under small feet. I sat there, next to Mr. King, for what seemed like ten minutes. His hand was wrapped so tight around my wrist, I lost feeling in my fingers.

  Then I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. Gayle had run round the fence, and stood there. She held her nest in the crook of one arm.

  “You’re hurt, Little John,” she said. She traced one finger down the side of my arm, where I’d cut myself on the wooden fence as I’d vaulted over. It was bleeding pretty bad, but nothing I couldn’t fix up with some butterfly bandages.

  “It’s no big deal,” I said. “You need to get on back home.” The Emperor was staring at her with those glittering eyes now. I wanted her gone, away from him. He might be dying, but who knew? A man like this was never safe.

  “Okay,” Gayle said. “I’ll sing it better later.”

  Sing it better? I smiled. In those words, she’d gone back to being the Gayle she had been before I’d betrayed her. Before she’d been broken. If she thought she could sing me better—that she might sing again—maybe she could—

  “For-forgive me?”

  I jerked back, wondering how Mr. King had read my mind.

  But he wasn’t looking at me; he was staring hard at Gayle. “Pl-please,” he wheezed, like each word was a torment to squeeze out. “Forgive?”

  I twisted my arm out of his grasp and stepped up and away from him. Gayle held her arms to me, and I picked her up, careful not to crush her nest. She hid her face in my shoulder, and I shook my head at him for her. “Too late,” I said. “She lost her voice, and her hair, and her nest, thanks to you.” I took a breath. “And thanks to me. Just live with it.”

  I knew I would have to.

  A voice inches below my chin said four words: “I love you, Tree.”

  For the first time, her calling me Tree didn’t bother me at all. “I love you, too, Gayle,” I whispered. “Let’s get you back home. We’ll find the perfect tree for your nest, okay?”

  Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed. Across the fence, Verlie Cutlin was shouting for Gayle, screaming for Jeb to find her shoes.

  And in my arms, a little girl with the voice of a nightingale said one word: “No.”

  The Emperor’s eyes closed, tears leaking from his lids. I took a step away, intent on taking Gayle back to the Cutlins. But she said the word again. “No.”

  To me.

  “What?”

  “It’s just like Momma said. I got my nest, and my tree, already.” She lifted her head. She wasn’t crying. She was smiling, beaming. “It’s all I needed. I can do it now. I can fix you, Tree.”

  “You don’t need to fix anything,” I started, but she put a finger up to my lips.

  “I can sing again,” she said, tapping her chest with her s
mall fist. “My voice is back. I can feel it. I want to sing you better.”

  She opened her mouth, and magic filled the air all around us.

  It had to be magic. Even a kid like me, who had never seen a miracle or even a magician, could tell that.

  Otherwise, how could I explain what happened next?

  She opened her mouth, and a trilling series of notes spilled out, a waterfall of song. I closed my eyes, feeling her body grow hotter, like she was a miniature sun, heating up the air around us, warming my arms and chest, with rays of sound.

  She grew lighter, as well, so light it felt like she was about to float out of my hands. Was she floating?

  I opened my eyes, blinking through the tears I hadn’t realized I was crying. “Gayle?” I whispered, but my voice was lost in a thrumming of wing beats, as hundreds upon hundreds of birds swirled and swooped through the sky above us, silent except for the sound of feathers and wind.

  We all listened to Gayle’s song, hypnotized. The notes told a story, of a tree whose branches had cracked in a storm. Of a nest that had tumbled to the ground along with the limbs. Of a downy chick, broken on the ground among the dried leaves and gravel. The tree wept leaves until it was bare and empty, holding its last two branches up to the sky in a silent question . . . and then the song changed. A new bird, another chick, lost and swept along on a blast of wind, struggling to fly with feathers too soft to hold the currents of air, stuttered mid-flight, and began to fall.

  Fell.

  And landed in the crook of the tree’s last two branches. Then, the bird and the tree sang together, a song of leaves and feathers, of friendship and protection, of soft winds and safety . . . and a nest of golden threads and silver twigs formed around them both.

  For a second, Gayle snuggled deeper into my chest, like the bird in her song. I hugged her closer as the birds in the sky swooped lower and lower, landing on the ground, the fence, the bushes, even on our heads and arms.

  Even on the Emperor, who was gasping, red-faced, but grew still as the birds settled silently on him, like a living quilt of feathers.