Wabanaki Blues

by Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel

  I snatch it back. “But what if it does?” I shake the picture. “Mom obviously knew a girl named Mia. That means her friend, Will Pyne, may have known her. What if this is the same Mia as the one who died at my high school? I’ve seen a photo of a Harley with green flames at Will’s house. That’s the bike they say the killer rode. What if he picked her up on her last day of school and they took a ride on his bike and something went wrong? Maybe she told him she was in love with somebody else, like Worthy Dill. Worthy’s son told me they had a thing. Maybe Will locked her in the school basement to die, as punishment.”

  “Whoa now, City Gal. You got all that from some hazy old photos?” Grumps drops his jailor’s keys. “Just because Will owns a bike that is similar…”

  “So Will does own a Harley with green flames?

  “Well sure, but that doesn’t mean anything. There are no murderers around here.”

  “C’mon Grumps! I’m sure there are plenty of murder cases that never get solved up here because nobody follows through or the killer slips the border to Canada. I’ll bet Indian Stream doesn’t even have a real police department. Besides, I’ve met Will Pyne. I know what he’s like. Any decent cop would pin him as a suspect for something hideous.”

  “The fact that Will’s peculiar doesn’t make him a murderer. Besides, you don’t even know this girl’s full name.” He flicks the photo in my hand with his fingernail. “She could be Mia Smith or Jones. Probably not the same gal at all.”

  I’m almost inclined to agree with him, when a shadow crosses my feet. Only it’s more than a shadow. It’s a woman, and she appears in living color, with wide emerald eyes, heavy dark curls, and huge silver hoop earrings with the word “LOVE” carved across the center. Her Rush band tee shirt shows a rabbit coming out of a hat.

  Not caring if Grumps overhears, I ask her, straight up, out loud, “Are you Mia Delaney?”

  She points to her chest, then the photo of the girl with Mom, and nods.

  I wonder why she doesn’t speak to me like Bilki does. I’m curious because I believe all Indians can talk to the dead, even Grumps. They just need to remember how.

  He holds his head with both hands and directs his stiff and imploring gaze upward, as if Bilki better weigh in on this sticky situation.

  “Now you’re talking to ghosts. You better get a grip, City Gal. Stop acting crazy like some of your northern relations.” He rubs his hands together like he’s wringing someone’s neck. “You’ve always had a dark side. It’s the musician’s curse. You need to get over it! Sometimes I imagine seeing your grandmother. Then I pull myself together. You should, too. Take a reality check.”

  Now I know where Mom gets her favorite annoying expression. He slumps in his rocker, deflated. I’ve likewise discovered where I get my slumping habit.

  Grumps isn’t really with me anymore. Talking about my grandmother has made his eyes cloud over like the morning fog on Second Connecticut Lake.

  Hoping to shift his focus away from Bilki, I return to Mia, “I saw the same dead girl at the Pyne house.”

  “This was after you’d been partying, no doubt.”

  “After two beers,” I admit.

  Grumps snorts. “Are you claiming that it’s reasonable to believe in what you see when you’re drunk?”

  “I had two beers. I wasn’t drunk.” My face heats up. I can’t hold back to protect his feelings, anymore. “You feed bananas to bears, and you think it’s weird that I saw a dead girl?”

  He rumbles like an earthquake. “Bears are real living creatures. They need to eat, just like you. They protect these woods, the whole planet, the universe in fact. You can’t see the dead. You can’t talk to the dead. Our people used to have those skills. But that was long ago.” Grumps thumps back down in his rocker and shoves his nose deep into The Farmer’s Almanac. The magazine is upside down.

  I don’t know what to say. For the first time it occurs to me that I haven’t actually seen Bilki since she died. Sure, we chat inside my head. But, thanks to my Great Bear hallucination, my head is a less reliable place than I once thought. Still, it’s got to be more reliable than the head of a man who feeds bananas to New Hampshire bears because he thinks they protect the universe.

  I try to force him to take a reality check. “If I didn’t see a dead girl then how do you explain the fact that I’ve seen a teenager who looks like the one in this photo from decades ago?”

  He peeks over the top of his magazine. “Coincidence. Doppelganger. Dead people don’t wander around as white wispy ghosts. That’s Hollywood.”

  “I didn’t say I saw a ghost. I said…” The sound of a Harley interrupts our conversation. I pray it’s not Will.

  “Maybe that’s your ghost,” Grumps grouses, still reading his magazine upside down.

  Through the window, I can’t see any bike but I do catch a dark tuft of leprechaun hair moving through the trees.

  “It’s nobody I want to see.”

  “Then I guess we’ll leave the door shut,” Grumps says with fake complacency.

  Del’s voice slips through the walls. “Mona Lisa, I know you’re home. Please let me in.”

  If only he had a different voice. If only I didn’t suspect his father of murder.

  He calls again, his voice cracking. “I need to see you. I have something important to tell you.”

  It sounds like he hasn’t moved on to those “other gals” or defaulted back to lemonhead. What if Sponge’s joke about Del’s serious romantic feelings for me was no joke at all? What if Del tried to jump off a tall building like City Place, right after I left his band practice? I know how it feels to consider such options, even though I never actually went there. Lucky for Del, there’s nothing over two stories high within three hundred miles of this middle-of-nowhere hellhole.

  “Please let me in,” he pleads. “I won’t stay long. I promise. I have to get to work.”

  I’m about to peek out the door to see his dad’s Harley with green flames, when Grumps throws down his Almanac, leaps out of his rocking chair, and flings the front door open. A rush of cool pine-scented air clears out some of the wood smoke from the room.

  The old man drags Del inside. “My granddaughter claims to have seen a ghost after drinking beer at your house yesterday.”

  Del’s lichen-green eyes glower, suggesting I’m a snitch, and a wackadoo one at that.

  I realize I need to backpeddle. “I saw lots of crazy stuff yesterday. I wasn’t feeling well. I even thought I saw an ancient bear in the woods.”

  Del and Grumps exchange bizarre looks.

  Grumps refolds his arms tightly over his great stomach, “You never know what you’ll see when it comes to bears. They’re complex. But ghosts! I’ll bet you get your whacky notions about them from that Canuck father of yours. I read in the newspaper that twice as many Canadians believe in ghosts as Americans. They ain’t got nothing to do up there in that big empty frozen wasteland but let their imaginations run wild.”

  My head flies back in shock at how blind he is. “You’re making fun of Canadians because they live in the northern boonies?”

  “No, I’m saying they’ve got strange notions up there—like lower standards for maple syrup and believing in ghosts.”

  “I know it’s possible to talk to the dead because Bilki talks to me all the time!” As soon as I announce this, I wish I hadn’t.

  Grumps sinks, and Del eyes me coldly, like I’ve said something unforgivable.

  So instead of shutting up, I babble. “She’s not the only dead person who visits me. I’ve been visited by Mia, as well.” I hand Del the picture. “This is my mother, Lila, and Mia. I think it’s the same Mia who was found dead at my high school back in the 1990s.”

  Grumps rumbles, “Be careful what you say, City Gal.”

  Del stands frozen and somber.

  Grumps throws an arm around him, �
��Never mind her, Del. She has an overactive imagination.”

  “Why would I make this up, Grumps?” I ask. “Do you think I like being stalked by Mia Delaney?”

  Grumps storms away into his bedroom, slamming the door.

  Del’s eyes trail Grumps, as if he wants to follow him. His words tumble over one another awkwardly. “There’s something at my house I want to show you.”

  “There’s no way I’m going back there.”

  He speaks soothingly, “Don’t worry. Dad leaves for Maine to deliver a painting around noon tomorrow. Please don’t say no.”

  “Honestly, Del. I can’t think of anything you could say that would make me want to go back to your house.”

  “What if I tell you that Mia Delaney was my mom?”

  Six

  The Devil Must Go

  Del appears at my door wearing crumpled clothes and a cautious smile, in a newly washed and vacuumed Saab. This means his dad took the Harley. That must have been one small painting to fit on the back of Will’s motorcycle. Del has cleared out everything from the backseat but a single piece of paper that contains the lyrics to the song we wrote together. I wonder if his older song lyrics were about Scales. I pick up the paper and read the last line:

  The devil must go.

  Those lyrics make my throat swell. I don’t know a worse devil than Will Pyne. Yet Mia Delaney must have seen something in him, once upon a time. I picture his mayonnaise slick skin, his bile-green eyes, his axle-grease hair. But perhaps looks are deceiving. If he had a child with Mia then maybe Will Pyne was not the devil that locked her in the janitor’s closet at Colt High, after all. Still, he’s a mean drunk and I don’t want to be around him. But I do want to be around Del, so I’ve got a problem.

  “You say Mia was your mom,” I say, picking up at the earth-shattering place where we left off.

  “Yes, she gave birth to me in late August after her junior year of high school. She didn’t show during the school year, so nobody at school knew she was pregnant. She went back her senior year like nothing had happened. She planned to get her diploma and then come back here for good.”

  Del’s Saab rumbles toward his house, its multi-colored siding shining in all its autumnal painted glory.

  “So this was Mia Delaney’s house?” I ask.

  “Yes,” Del chokes.

  I scan the driveway for vehicles. “You’re sure that your dad left for Maine?”

  “He headed out over an hour ago.” Del lays a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “You’re safe with me.”

  My head throbs at his words. I can’t help but wonder if this is what Will Pyne said to Mia Delaney before he locked her in the school basement closet. You’re safe with me. Then I remember Mia is Del’s mom. She and Will had a child together. They loved one another. I’m probably all wrong in my assumptions about him. I’m sure that’s what Del is dragging me to his house to prove.

  Del taps the paper I‘m holding. “Those lyrics we wrote aren’t half bad.” He spreads his hands like they’re framing a lit-up marquis. “LaPierre and Pyne, I can see it now. We could be the next Lennon and McCartney.”

  “Lennon and McCartney, “ I drone. “You like the Beatles?”

  His beaming lichen-green eyes tell me that I should already know that. And of course I do. I feel like he was made for me, which is dangerous, and another reason I want to find out what really happened to his mom.

  We pull into the Pynes’ garage.

  “Mona Lisa, this is what I need to show you.” He beckons me toward a cheap beige vinyl door at the back of the garage. This door doesn’t appear to get much use; it has cobwebs on the padlock. My nose detects the scent of whiskey and blood beneath the aroma of axle grease. Del smiles at me, inveiglingly. I move closer to him and smell musky honey.

  Then it hits me. I’m facing a padlocked door at the home of a man with a green-flamed Harley who keeps a photo of a girl who was murdered at my high school. I picture her getting waved into this locked room, like somebody waved her into the school janitor’s basement closet and then locked her inside. Panic sets in. Is Del more like his dad than I want to believe? Like father, like son? I can’t go inside this locked room.

  “Why do you have this room padlocked, Del?” My heart thumps inside my chest. I listen hard for any warning from Bilki.

  He holds out the open padlock. “I know this seems weird. But you’ll understand when you see what’s inside.” He hands me the lock, and it feels like an ice cube. “Inside this room is a gift my dad made for my mom. It will prove to you that he didn’t kill her.”

  He pulls me inside the secret room. My clenched heart melts. I’m in the middle of what appears to be a colossal bouquet. Four wall-size canvases fill the room, each painted with interior designs of rooms made from oversized flowers. The dining room features daisy chairs set beside a sunflower dining room table. Stuffed lounge chairs in the living room are constructed of velvety iris; the carpet is made from delicate cherry blossoms and lady slippers. Purple hydrangeas form poufy couches. The kitchen sink is composed of Borneo silvers, the bathtub of passionate red peonies; everything in these paintings is soft, supple, and scented. Will has painted a fantasy home, a sweet and idealized place to start a family, the kind of place you see inside a dream. His signature sits in the bottom right corner of each of the four paintings, written steadfastly in all caps: WILL.

  Del drops down on the floor and pats the boards beside him. “Lie down here, beside me. You haven’t seen the best painting, yet.”

  A knot cramps my gut and tightness spreads down my legs. No guy has ever asked me to lie down beside him. I slowly lower myself to a sitting position and hold my knees.

  Del takes a hand off my leg and kisses it. “Relax. You can’t see the best painting unless you lie on your back. It’s on the ceiling.” He wiggles into a comfortable position and points upward.

  I stiffly recline, trying to focus on the ceiling and not on the padlock still in my sweaty hand, or Del’s warm body beside me.

  “What do you think, Mona Lisa?”

  The canvas overhead depicts a bedroom without color. It’s white on white. There’s a bed made of calla lilies, downturned sheets made of Queen Anne’s lace and a comforter of stephanotis. White tulips form the pillows and the headboard overflows with bellflowers and baby’s breath. A painted faux frame of white roses surrounds the whole picture. There are no noticeable shadows in the artwork. But they must be there. Right? Or I couldn’t see the white flowers. You have to have shadows to notice light.

  Del prods me with a gentle elbow. “What’s your opinion of this work?”

  “I can’t believe your dad painted this for your mom.

  “I know. Me, either.”

  “What did Bilki say when she saw this painting?”

  He rolls over and kisses my shoulder, electrifyingly, shockingly. My body stiffens like rigor mortis.

  “She never saw it,” he says, gulping. “Nobody has seen it, except Dad and me. I only found out about this room after Dad was on one of his drunken rants He’d been going on about the surprise wedding/graduation gift in the garage that he’d made for Mom before she died.” Then one day, I happened upon the padlock key in a junk drawer.

  I feel like a peeping Tom, viewing this secret painting meant for someone else. While I’m obsessing over my guilty conscience, Del rolls over and kisses my open mouth, mid-thought, pressing me into the floor. I melt into him. I want this. My heart pounds through my chest so hard I know he can feel it. His lips are velvety, like those flower petals. His tongue tastes fiery, like shooting stars. His rock hard hands wrap around me so tightly that I’m not sure where they begin and I end, and I don’t care. Everything spins. One minute I’m lying on the floor, the next I’m on that white flowerbed inside the rose picture frame on the ceiling, its white-hot flowers burning through me like flares from a newborn sun.

&n
bsp; Del pulls away and sits up, abruptly. “Whoa, Mona Lisa. That was wild. I’m sorry. I’ve got to remember how old you are and slow down.”

  I flush, resenting his self-control. “We’re only a couple of years apart.”

  “I don’t think that’s how our parents would see it.”

  I want to be back in his arms, melting into him under that white-hot sun. I fight for composure and walk away toward a corner bookcase. It’s painted white and set between the paintings. The doors on the front are glass and I can see a single book inside. It has a yellow and black bumblebee cover. The cover says “Colt High Yearbook 1994.”

  “This is your mom’s Colt High yearbook!” I say.

  Del shouts, “Yes! but before you open that, I need to explain!”

  I’m already flipping for the senior portraits. One stands out from the rest: a girl with dark curls, wide emerald eyes, and big hoop earrings with LOVE carved across the center. Underneath her photo, it says, “Mia Delaney—destined to follow her star, or some rock star. Wherever Mia goes, there will be music.” The senior pictures follow in alphabetical order. The photo beside hers is labeled, “Worthy Dill.” The guy’s face is violently scratched out, as if with a scalpel.

  My hands shake. “Your dad really hated Worthy. Didn’t he, Del? It seems he reacted poorly to Mia’s relationship with him.”

  “No! It’s not what it seems. Mom is the one who despised Worthy. That’s why I wanted you to see this room. Maybe he killed her. You need to know the whole story. Mom mailed Dad this yearbook near the end of senior year. He was living up here with me, waiting for her to complete high school so we could all be together, for good. Everything was all set.”

  I point to Worthy’s scratched-out picture. “It looks to me like Will did this. Maybe he was mad at your mom because of her relationship with Worthy and killed her.”

  “No! Dad says Mom scratched out the picture because Worthy was always bothering her.”