Devil and the Bluebird

by Jennifer Mason-Black

  He read, then raised one hand. “It’s okay. I understand. The police can feel like a bad idea. I just think that maybe this”—he pointed at her neck—“deserves some attention.” Staring straight at her, his eyes dark and steady, until she needed to look down.

  Chimes began to ring: the grandfather clock turning over the hour. Eleven. Steve knew her name. He’d been with her for days already. They were running out of time.

  Maybe the only right answer was the one she didn’t want.

  She stood up. Javier did as well, graceful as a dancer.

  I have to go.

  “Go where?”

  Now. Leave before they get back.

  It hurt to say it. All this time she’d been thinking that people who left didn’t hurt when they went away. It wasn’t true at all. It felt like an earthquake inside her, things being forced apart.

  “Whoa, what’s going on?”

  I can’t explain. You have to trust me.

  He shook his head, slow and sad. “There’s nothing I can do to help? Life doesn’t have to be like this. Families can be worked out, and if they can’t, well, families can be made. Romantic love isn’t the only kind of love people can find.”

  I can’t. It’s not like that for me. Steve?

  “We got his back, you understand? He’ll be okay. We’ve seen kids come in in worse shape, real bad, and they do okay. We’ve got a pretty good network here. Places to stay, school, doctors—lots of trans kids need help somewhere along the way. We’re here to give it to them. The question is: What do you need?”

  Her boots. She couldn’t leave without her boots. Crap. She rolled her head back, looked up at the ceiling, where, unexpectedly, a small bluebird was flying, painted with care on the tin work.

  My boots. Steve took them.

  Javier shook his head. “He refused to leave with them on. We gave him sneakers from the closet. Good footwear’s gold when you’re on the street.”

  Steve. He’d believed her, and he’d known she’d leave before he got back. He’d left the boots.

  Either that, or he was afraid of what wearing them might mean.

  “We’ve got other stuff in the closet, too. It makes sense to keep what we can on hand. Let’s see what we can do for you.”

  She kept the blanket around her as they went to the closet. Not just to keep off the cold, though that was part of the reason. It wasn’t so much that she was afraid of Javier . . . it was more that she couldn’t stop seeing Rat in his place.

  Javier dug through boxes and hangers, holding up things from time to time. She chose without thought. It wasn’t until the end that she understood the pattern.

  Javier did, too. “Might be safer that way. Depends. People catch on, they can be mean. Worse than mean. Your voice won’t give you away, but the hair . . . That’s gonna make it harder.”

  She ran a hand over her hair. She’d worn it the same way for years. A little longer than chin length, most of it turning to corkscrews as soon as she brushed it out.

  Do you have clippers? Scissors?

  Javier vanished into the bathroom, waved her in after him. She hesitated in the doorway. He said nothing, just waited. Behind her the clock chimed the half hour. Time to go. She walked in.

  The mirror had lights around the border—soft, glowing ones. “Lots of kids want the chance to practice makeup somewhere safe. Liza set this up to help them.”

  Even under the soft light, she looked terrible. The bruises were coming out around her neck like a collar of dust. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, everything puffy and dark with lack of sleep and crying. She twisted a strand of her hair, tugged.

  “You ready?” He’d plugged a pair of clippers into the wall and stood, arm raised. She nodded.

  It didn’t feel like much of anything. A little tickly, here and there. A little weird to watch the hair drop from her head in great bunches, falling like leaves around her. A tree, she thought, that’s all it is. I’m a tree headed into winter, and my leaves will come again in the spring.

  “You okay?” Javier asked, resting one hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off, nodded again. He kept going.

  Once he was done, she changed into the clothes she’d chosen. Two tees, one tight, one loose; a long-sleeved crew; a worn flannel shirt; a plain green sweater a few sizes too big. Men’s jeans, a little loose, hanging a little low. She held them up with one hand, ran her other hand over her shaved head. Without hair, she looked paler, her eyes wider, her bruises more obvious. The unfamiliar clothes, the smell of them—some detergent she didn’t recognize—the way everything padded out her shoulders . . . For a moment, she could see a boy, some tired, scared boy who could have been a cousin, a friend.

  Javier made a few adjustments when she came out. He took off his belt, warning her first—”You need something to hold up your pants”—and she tightened it around her own waist. “What you really need is a good coat, and I’m not sure what to give you.”

  He went to the closet again, searched, finally pulled something out. A navy blue peacoat, heavy, thick. He took keys out of one pocket, a wallet from the other.

  She pointed at him. He nodded. She shook her head.

  “I was thinking I wanted a new coat, anyway. Time to redo the image, you know? Something a little sportier, a little less old-man. You’re just giving me an excuse.”

  Blue tried to refuse again, but he insisted. With the coat on, she looked almost completely unlike herself.

  “And a hat. You’re going to freeze to death without one.”

  For no reason came a vision of Rat’s dungeon, and the blood, and his hands, and the feel of the lamp hitting him. She pressed one hand over her mouth.

  Javier reached for her, stopped short. “Listen, there’s nothing you can tell me that will be too shocking for me to handle. Bad things happen sometimes. I know all about it. I’m worried about you. What if you stay tonight, sleep safe, and we figure things out in the morning?”

  Almost midnight. Time to move on.

  She had nothing to take but her guitar and her keepsake bag. She stuffed the bag in the guitar case. The one thing they hadn’t found in the closet was a pair of gloves, but her fingerless gloves were in the case and she put them on, figuring they were better than nothing. Her boots she laced quickly, the familiar ache settling in at once. Javier handed her a hand-knitted hat, blue, cabled, thick. She put it on.

  Thank you.

  She looked at Javier, the concern in his eyes.

  I’ll be OK. Plz take care of Steve. I need to know he’ll be OK. Tell him—

  Tell him what, exactly? She didn’t have any sense at all of what she was doing anymore, beyond trying to keep moving, trying not to hurt anyone else. She needed a plan. More important, she needed to leave before he came back.

  —that I’ll check back here once I get things fixed. Make sure he knows that, OK? And I meant what I said by the lake. Tell him

  But really there was nothing more. Nothing beyond the fact that leaving people sucked just as much as being left, that now she could see that maybe it hadn’t been life Mama had clung to for so long, but her and Cass, that maybe Cass had missed her even as she walked out Lynne’s door and into whatever future she’d chosen.

  Thank you.

  She touched Javier’s hand, quickly, lightly. Then, guitar in hand, she went back into the cold.

  Outside the snow fell thick and fast, blunting the lines of the buildings. Down the back of her neck the snowflakes flew, landing in the space between coat collar and hat that her hair should have covered. She shivered.

  Come on, boots. Where do I go? Her only answer was the ache. She turned left, took three steps. Somewhere a clock started to toll the hour. She looked down the street to the corner of the block. No traffic, just snow and the chiming.

  She ran down the sidewalk, pausing at the edge of the crosswalk, then into the middle of the intersection, the white below her feet lit by the flash of the red stoplight above.

  I’m here! What n
ow? Give me some sort of frigging sign, because I don’t have a clue. I can’t just walk across Chicago and hope for the best.

  She looked in all four directions but saw nothing. The air smelled only of snow. Head back, she opened her eyes wide, blinking away the snowflakes.

  A honk. She spun, jumped back as a car slowed and slid past her. The door flew open and a woman jumped out.

  “Oh my God, are you okay. I didn’t bump you, right?” She kept the car between them, as if afraid of Blue.

  Blue shook her head and reached into her pocket for the unicorn notebook. The woman gripped the door, her fear more obvious. Blue held the notebook up, the pen, wrote quickly.

  I’m fine, you didn’t bump me. I can’t speak.

  She leaned over the car to show the woman the page. The woman read it, examined her. Blue pulled the coat collar up, uncomfortably, aware of the bruises.

  “What are you doing out in the snow with a guitar?”

  The woman looked young. College age, maybe. Short hair, dyed red and cut as ragged as if she’d done it herself in front of a mirror. A nice ski jacket, but the car she was driving was an old, beat-up sedan. A little kid stared out at Blue from the backseat.

  Leaving town.

  The woman studied her again, as if she knew something about Blue, some secret they shared, some underground river they’d seen and sworn to keep hidden.

  “Where are you going?” The woman had come around the car.

  Blue looked down, brushed the snow off her notebook. What was the next stop along the Gully? The paper had gotten wet, and the ink stuck and sputtered, and it took her a while to remember how to spell the name.

  Minneapolis.

  “Me too.” Up close, the woman definitely looked young. Also sad, and lonely, and more than a little cautious.

  “Is there really a guitar in that case?”

  Blue nodded. What did she think, that Blue was smuggling guns in it? And didn’t the woman have something better to be doing than standing in the intersection talking with a stranger?

  “Do you want a ride? It’s a long drive in the snow. You can help me stay awake.” She looked as far from sleep as Blue was from home. A ride was a ride, unless the woman turned out to be like Florida and Rat. Only . . . Blue looked at the kid’s little face, the uneven cut of the pale bangs. Something felt off, but not like with Florida.

  Blue nodded. The woman opened the back door, then turned back to Blue.

  “What’s your name?”

  Blue thought for a moment.

  Interstate.

  The woman gave her a funny look but returned to the child. “Lacey, Interstate’s gonna get a ride with us. His guitar can’t fit in the trunk, so you need to lift your feet and let me slide it in front of you. Okay?”

  His? Blue’s hand went to her shaved scalp. She was a boy; or at least she was playing one, for now. How could she have forgotten?

  Lacey obliged, silent, little feet raised and lowered, shod in pink boots with butterflies on them. The kind Blue would have wanted when she was four—the kind Mama would have looked for in every thrift store they passed.

  Behind them came headlights, and the woman flinched. A sedan rolled up, silver, a man at the wheel. The driver leaned toward them as he slowed to a stop, snow catching in his graying crew cut. With a gravelly voice he asked, “Everything okay here?”

  “Yes, thanks, just moving stuff.” Speaking loudly, a little too much force, a little too much cheer.

  But it wasn’t her the man was staring at. It was Blue, as if he knew her, as if she knew him. Cold chased its way down her spine.

  “Okay, then. You all be careful.” Window back up, the man shifting in his seat, the car sliding on by, the license plate obscured with mud.

  Blue got in. The car swiveled a bit before picking up speed. The snow blew at the headlights, fluttered, and bounced off the windshield, the tops of the passing buildings invisible to her. Good-bye, Chicago, she thought, wondering whether Steve was back, whether he was okay. Good-bye, everything here. Hello, whatever is coming.

  The woman drove in grim silence, hands tight on the steering wheel. The weather was making her tense, sure, but something else was, too. After all, who left Chicago in the middle of the night, in a snowstorm, with a little girl in tow?

  “Mama?” Lacey said, a hint of fear in her voice.

  “It’s okay. You just try and sleep, sweetie.” The woman glanced at Blue.

  For that matter, who picked up a mute teenage boy they met in an intersection while leaving Chicago in the middle of the night? Blue turned that puzzle over and over as she watched the wipers rock back and forth, her head bouncing lower and lower on her chest until she dissolved into sleep.

  “I’m Andrea.”

  They were parked outside a rest stop. It was early morning, and the snow had begun to let up, and the black had lightened to gray. Blue’s stomach rumbled incessantly.

  “Listen, do you actually have a place to go?” Andrea looked in the rearview mirror as she spoke.

  Blue hesitated. How much did she really want to tell this woman, who still hadn’t given a reason for the late-night trip?

  “I’m just thinking . . . If you don’t have someplace, I might be able to help.”

  Again, the feeling of something being not right. There was something tough about Andrea, something in the sharp way she watched Blue. But beneath that . . . there was something in the way she broke off eye contact more quickly than Blue expected, as though hiding herself away.

  Not sure. You have room?

  That quick glance toward her, then down again. “Yeah. Sort of.”

  “I gotta pee, Mama,” Lacey called from the back.

  “Of course, sweetie. Let’s go.”

  Blue had a brief moment of confusion inside, almost following Andrea into the women’s restroom. She turned at the last second and went into the men’s. Empty, at least when she went into the stall. When she came out, a cleaning woman stood by the sink, one hand on the handle of a mop. The same burnt smell, only was it? Something in it reminded her just a little of Christmas. Oranges filled with cloves, a little sweeter, a little less decay.

  What? She didn’t bother writing. It’s been one day, and I didn’t give my name, and if you’re going to change the rules again, I’m going to tell you to give me my voice back.

  The janitor said nothing, just watched her. She was a small woman, dark-skinned, wearing a light blue uniform with a name tag pinned over her left breast. Blue read the name there.

  What about it, Gabriela? What do you have to say now?

  “Is that what you’re going to do, Bluebird? Demand? From me?” She didn’t sound scary, or mean. Just tired, if that were possible.

  As if she could, as if she had the power to demand her voice back, not ask, demand. I don’t want you to change the rules again. I want to play things out the way you said. She swallowed hard. You know what happened, right? I did something terrible. Not just what we did to Rat, but I told him my name. I wanted, I wanted you to hurt him, kill him maybe. And he did terrible things to us, me and Steve, and I had to leave Steve behind.

  I want this game to be over. I want to find Cass and be done.

  The woman shifted her mop handle, leaned it against the wall. Up close, she only came to Blue’s chest. She drew one finger along Blue’s throat, tracing the bruises there.

  “We all enter into bargains not knowing the true cost. All of us, every day.”

  Even you?

  “Even me. All you can do is follow your path, do your best.”

  I thought you controlled everything.

  “No one controls everything, Bluebird.”

  Can you—

  But the woman was already going, slipping into her mop bucket, and then the bucket itself slipping into the floor, like a pocket being turned inside out. The floor sealed neatly behind her.

  If no one controlled everything, where did that leave her?

  Lacey settled down after she’d had the so
ggy muffin Andrea had bought her at the rest stop. She surprised Blue with one, too, but it did little for her hunger. If she’d had money, she would have packed her guitar case full of potato chips, crackers, anything that came cheap and portable.

  Andrea just had coffee, sipping it as she drove. “I can’t believe it snowed. I had everything planned out.”

  She glanced at Blue, lowered her voice. “I’m guessing you didn’t have a plan. Sometimes you just have to run, right?”

  ’Cause sometimes the devil was on your trail. No, that wasn’t what Andrea was talking about. Whatever she was leaving behind, she kept checking for it in the rearview mirror.

  “I want out!” Lacey began to kick the seats with the tips of her boots.

  “Not yet. I told you it would take a long time. Tell me what you can see instead of fussing.”

  But there was nothing to see beyond a steady landscape of fresh white. Lacey quickly resumed her kicking. Andrea’s face hardened as she gripped the wheel more tightly.

  Blue reached behind her for the guitar. It took a lot of work to free it from the case, more to bring it forward without hitting anyone in the head. It worked magic on Lacey, though, from the moment she touched the case. She didn’t know kids’ songs, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. The little girl used verses she knew and simply pushed them into the spaces the music made.

  By the time Blue was ready to stop, Lacey had dropped off into sleep. She rested the guitar between her knees, picking strings softly.

  “Those were Dry Gully songs.”

  Warmth filled her chest. She couldn’t help but smile.

  “I saw them once. In the winter. My mom had their record, listened to it all the time. She drove us in a snowstorm when they came to Chicago. I was little, like ten, maybe. They were so good, and my mom was so happy. She sang along with every song.”

  A single tear trickled down Andrea’s cheek. Following an urge, Blue reached up to brush it away. Andrea flinched. Then she laughed as though it were nothing, though the sad stayed in her eyes.

  “The guitarist was so sweet. I think my mom wished they were best friends.”