The Magpie's Return

by Peter Wright

  Fran’s expression blank as she steps closer. She kneels in the grass. “Shit.” A slow smile. Then one hand over her mouth, the other reaching out, a tender tracing of your swollen jaw. She grips your fingers, loose at first, then tight. “I thought—”

  “I know.” Another car in the alley, the crunch of tires over gravel. “Pretend you’re tying your shoe.”

  Fran sets her bag aside and rests her chin on her knee. She pulls her sneaker’s lace and reties. Her head down as she speaks. “Where have you been?”

  “Not far.”

  “Your dad—”

  “Don’t. Not now.”

  “And your mom.”

  “They have her. Somewhere.”

  Fran glances back to her house and unties her other sneaker. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I fucking hate all this.”

  “Who else is missing?”

  Fran lists classmates and teachers. Some arrested, others simply gone, their cars packed in the dead of night. A few murdered. “That crazy lady behind your house, too,” Fran said. “And just up the street two nights ago, like that day after the pool.”

  “I was there. I saw it.”

  “Do you think they’re after you?”

  “I don’t think so. But they’re not going to just let me stay. They’ll take me away.”

  Fran unzips her backpack and sticks her lunch bag between the branches. “Don’t say no. The cafeteria ladies are still making food like everyone’s still around. They were giving it away yesterday at the end of the period.” She rises. “Wait there.” She glances toward the house then tests the knob of the garage’s side door. She waves. Hunched and stiff, you step from beneath the bush. The leaves brush wet against your hair.

  Fran closes the door behind you. Sun filters through the dirty windows, and an earthy haze wraps Fran’s father’s prized Impala. The same model he drove as a teenager, a car already a relic by the time he’d inherited the keys. A gearshift on the column and a pushbutton AM radio. You were in the backyard the day the tow truck delivered the car. A bird’s nest on the passenger seat. Rust on your palm as you helped Fran and her father push the car into the garage. Fran’s mother refusing her husband’s invitations to come and get a better look.

  “Stay here until I get home.” Fran pulls a leaf from your hair. “Look at you.” A flutter of her lower lip then an embrace. Fran breathes deep, steps back, and wipes her eyes. “They say it’s going to start raining by noon. If we don’t have practice I’ll come right home.” She readjusts her backpack’s strap. “Even if we do have practice I’ll be right home. But don’t go anywhere, OK?”

  “I won’t.”

  She strokes your face. “Promise?”

  “Hope to die.”

  Fran’s smile crumbles. She begins to cry. “Don’t say that. Please.”

  “Sorry.”

  She dabs her tears. “Do you remember where we keep the outside key?”

  You nod. A fake brick at the end of the house-hugging flowerbed. A secret compartment inside. Another hug before Fran leaves. The promise to be back soon.

  You circle the car, a path so narrow you’re forced to turn sideways. Your shoulders bent to avoid the hanging ladders and tools. The smell of oil and grease. The front grill inches from the workbench, and you pick through the tools, the boxes and shelves. Switches. Fuses. Glass-jar collections of nuts and bolts and screws. You take nothing, yet the inventory feels vital, your survival hinging on an awareness you’re only beginning to appreciate. You step back then rise onto your toes. At the garage’s far end, an open loft. A shadowed berth of scrap wood, a door with a ripped screen.

  Your heel strikes a box. A rattle, and inside, four shiny hubcaps. When Fran’s father drove you to your club tournaments, there was always the chance the ride home would include a junkyard detour. Fran mortified, her eyes rolling with each word from her father’s mouth. You quiet yet intrigued. The rusting landscapes. The scurry of mice. The cars’ crumpled histories. Their loss of shine and glint a kind of death. The Impala an amalgamation of ancient-decayed and ancient-preserved, gleaming here, tarnished there. Fran’s mother full of sighs, the foolishness of it all. You pick up a hubcap. Your distorted reflection slips across the chrome. The quest to restore a car lost in a man’s youth. Your desire to play varsity and kiss Billy Stafford. How little it all means.

  You settle into the driver’s seat. The window crank missing. A new rearview mirror. You open Fran’s lunch bag and take a few bites of a sandwich. The act joyless, but a machine needs fuel. A note in the bag’s bottom. We’re thinking of you.

  The Impala’s steering wheel similar to the one in your father’s truck, and you glide your palm over the circumference of hard plastic, the underside’s rippled grip. The windshield dirty, and its radiating cracks fragment the workbench’s tools and rags. You grip the wheel, your foot on the gas. You imagine acceleration’s push, the sinking of your spine into the seat. You imagine the river road, the trees’ shadows and the water’s radiant flicker. You don’t picture a destination, only motion.

  In the backseat, you unzip your backpack and place the gun inside. A blanket covers the ripped upholstery, and when you stretch out, the rough material scratches your neck. You bunch another blanket into a pillow. Around you, scents that remind you of your uncles, their trucks and toolboxes. Fatigue fills you. Close your eyes. The rain comes, a soft rhythm on the roof, and again, you find yourself in a box within a box. Then another box, this one carried deep in your chest. The burial plot for all you’ve lost.

  You wake with a cry. Fran by the driver’s-side door. She jerks back, hands raised. “Only me, hon.” The rain’s ragged rhythm echoes. Her shorter hair still a surprise. “Let me see if anyone’s home, OK?”

  You slip into your boots. The heaviness of sleep crumbles, and you focus on the task at hand. You wrap the gun in a blanket and climb atop the car’s hood, eye-level with the loft. The triangular space recedes to darkness. Dust and cobwebs, and atop the scrap wood, more boxes. Sheets of shingles. A roll of linoleum. A chipped sink. You tuck the blanket into a nook between the ceiling’s slant and a stripped bike frame.

  You’ve gathered your backpack and laced your boots by the time Fran returns. “Just us. Come on.” A dash across the backyard. The rain. The fear of being seen. A thick sky and breeze-jostled trees.

  The kitchen. Your sense of time adrift, this step back and the seamless alignment of memory and reality. Everything in its place, but with your next breath, you stand in your old kitchen, its mess and empty spaces, a boneyard of broken dishes and scattered silverware. You grow lightheaded. Disoriented by thirst and the stainless steel’s glimmer and the refrigerator’s hum. You lay a hand on the counter. All of it so real, so solid—your flesh a breeze destined to evaporate when the others open their eyes.

  “Hungry?” Fran asks.

  “Water?”

  Fran at the spigot. The glass filled, and the flow curdles in you. Both hands on the counter and the fear of collapse. “School sucks without you.” The glass handed over. Fran wipes her hands against her jeans. “How about a bath? You can wear my stuff. I’ll wash whatever you want.”

  Fran’s cat in the doorway, a look then backwards steps to the dining room. Above, the echo of the filling tub, the push of water through thin pipes. You place your hands under the spigot. The cold water cupped and a splash on your face. The sensation of being awake yet not. On the ledge above the sink, a photo of Fran and her parents. The three of them posed atop a hilltop boulder. You imagine a picture little different next door. And in the neighbors’ houses beyond them. And beyond them, a web unbroken until it reaches the edge of town. You think of a thousand snapshot smiles and a mob’s rage, and you wonder how a person can contain such extremes. Wonder if you, deep down, are any different.

  The water shuts off. “Kay?” Fran calls.

  You lug your pack up the stairs. The bag holds all you own, and again, you consider the hermit crab, its house carried on its back. You enter the
bathroom, a wall of heat and haze. Fran sets a towel on the sink. “I’ll get some clothes.”

  “Stay,” you say. “Please.”

  Fran sits on the toilet. You peel off your top and unbutton your jeans. Your bra and panties next. In you, the fear of being alone. You bunch back your hair. The touch of your mother’s necklace takes you off guard, and you lift the cross and let it drop back to your chest. Naked, you picture Missy. Her pain. The panic of last thoughts. Fog on the medicine cabinet mirror, your face blurred. A toe to test the water, and the heat rises into you, a sensation just shy of pain. You lower yourself. A guarded immersion and a long, settling sigh. The water bleeds gray. The garden’s dirt. The tarpaper’s rub. The smoke in your hair. You cup a handful and wet your neck and face. The water turns your skin red and your melting continues. Your lungs open, and you breathe deeper than you have for days.

  “We’ll blow up the air mattress,” Fran says.

  Your hand moves beneath the water. Lazy circles, swirls of dirt and soap. “I can’t stay. Not forever. I don’t think it works like that now. The people around us—they’re the ones who did this.” You rub a bar of soap over your arm. You contemplate telling her about Missy, but you don’t think you can without breaking. “They’re not going to want to see me walking around, reminding them of what they did. Or who they are.”

  Fran silent for a minute before she starts percolating with plans. Tomorrow morning she’ll leave for school but then join you in the garage until her parents go to work. Her parents both carpooling, a necessity dictated by eight-dollar-a-gallon gas. There’d be a car and you’ll drive to the stadium. Fran has over a hundred dollars, and you have Helen’s stash, and surely you could bribe a guard to let you see your mother. If that plan fizzles, you’ll just drive. Fran will take you anywhere you want. A new town, and she’ll help you find an apartment. You’ll get a job and Fran will send what she can. You’ll lay low until the world either comes to its senses or forgets about you.

  You half-listen, then not at all. Fran’s words withered by the steam, by their improbability once they meet the cold air on the other side of the bathroom door. You turn the spigot and lose yourself in the splash and heat, a drift shattered by the front door’s closing and a call up the steps. “Fran?”

  Fran stands. “Let me talk to her first.”

  The door opens and closes. A moment’s cool draft. You listen to the rain. You hug your legs, your chin resting on raised knees, your hair wet and dripping across your back.

  Footsteps. An odd rhythm—trepidation, eagerness. A knock on the door. “Kayla?”

  The door eases back, a silent asking of permission. Fran’s mother’s smile weaker than her tears. Her work clothes—a white blouse and tan skirt. Stockings but no shoes. Magic marker streaks on her fingers—purple and orange. She kneels by the tub. Her hand shakes as she touches your cheek. “I’m sorry, honey.” Her touch crumbles into an embrace. The dampness on her blouse, and the material clings to your chest. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

  Fran’s mother sits back upon her heels. Her eyes ringed with black. Her hair and blouse wet. Again, the wavering smile. Her hand on the tub’s side, and you place your hand on top, the press of her wedding ring into your palm. Then a repositioning, your fingers laced. Welcome in her mother’s eyes, yet beneath, another look. A mirror’s gaze. The reflection of what could be.

  “Have you heard anything about my mom?”

  “No, honey.” She stands. “I’ll start dinner. You take your time.” Her palms smooth her skirt. A pause at the door. “I’m glad you’re here, Kay. We were so worried.”

  Let the water drain. A gray whirlpool. The chill spreads across your back. A towel that smells of the backyard line, sun and trees and grass. You dry off. The mirror slick against your palm as you wipe a swath. Your eyes stare back, the puff and bruise of your jaw. The rest of you lost.

  Draped in a towel, you stand in front of Fran’s closet. “Take whatever you want.” Fran at her desk, her homework out. Her pencil tapping. She lists the people she’s heard were at last night’s fire. Neighbors. Coaches. Todd Abbott and Billy Stafford. “I hate them all,” Fran says.

  You dress. Sweatpants, your travel team’s T-shirt. You wrap your hair in a towel and slide a book from Fran’s backpack. A seat on the bed and a propping against the wall. A pillow’s soft luxury. This year’s science text. The stretching universe, the living Earth. The formation of fossils. A gap near the end, thirty-some pages ripped out. A glimpse to the index—Darwin and his finches and The Origin of Species.

  “Fuck it.” Fran pushes her papers aside. “I can’t think about school. Fucking Todd Abbott. Fucking Billy Stafford. Fucking all of them.”

  “Can I have your phone and buds? I’ll listen to some music while you work.”

  “And fuck my work, Kay.”

  You smile. A slipping into old roles, you the one who encouraged Fran to study. “Get your work done and we’ll have time to hang.” Hang—the word catches in your throat, and you glance down.

  “I may need some help.” Fran hands over her phone and earbuds. Her words normal but you detect a hitch, the artifice of playing a role. Of not addressing what you’re both thinking about. “Math is a bitch this year.”

  “I’m all yours if you need me.”

  You hold the phone, the earbuds secure, the screen cupped and hidden. A YouTube clip you watch five times in a row. An instructional video, a gun like Helen’s, the basics of loading and firing. When you’re done, you clear the history and pick up Fran’s field hockey stick. You flick your wrists, the heel turned in and out. You hear your mother calling from the sidelines. Fran talks. Her homework forsaken for the weaving of evermore elaborate plans. Perhaps, Fran says, you’ll run away together, just the two of you. Schemes questionable at best, others outright criminal.

  You wonder when Fran will feel the emptiness between you. A chasm sudden and deep and glaring. The foundations you shared eroding with every breath. You drift on the flow and each hour takes you further from what you shared. Fran’s words—and her reality—lost beneath the current.

  The front door opens. A man’s voice. Fran saddles up to the door, her ear to the opened crack. The downstairs conversation quickly masked by the radio. Fran’s father works for the Transportation Department. A desk job in the capital, a start twenty-five years before on a road crew. His voice the sideline’s loudest at their field hockey games. Admonishments for Fran to hustle or focus; exasperation with the refs, tirades that earned him a season-long ban during your eighth-grade season. His heavy footsteps. Fran sits on the bed and holds your hand. A knock on the door.

  He wears a loosened tie and unbuttoned collar, rolled-up sleeves. The cat twines between his scuffed shoes. Fran and your mother the best of friends, your fathers polite but never clicking. Their politics, your father’s ignorance of sports. Carried in Fran’s father’s wake, music and kitchen smells. You stand and embrace. A whisper, “I’m sorry, Kay.” He steps back. “Come on down for dinner.”

  An extra plate at the table. The spot you think of as yours. Your history of dinners, of peanut butter-and-jelly lunches and breakfasts after a sleepover. Chicken stew, steam from your bowl. You nibble bites between answered questions. Slater’s role in your father’s murder. Your rescue and Helen’s disappearance. The fate of Chestnut. Your plan of finding your mother among the stadium’s detainees, an explanation abandoned after a sidelong glance from Fran’s father.

  Fran’s mother delivers seconds to her husband’s plate. “Kayla, you’ve hardly eaten. Is it OK?”

  You speak into your lifted fork. “It’s good. Thanks.”

  An itch on your skin. Fran has yet to recognize your incongruity, but her parents are more perceptive. Her father’s stares. The pauses before her mother speaks, the sentences cut short. Each an acknowledgment that you’re a wrong note in their harmony. A reminder of what could be lost and what they’re anxious to preserve. A fugitive, even one of a lesser degree, is bound to be noted by th
e neighbors who walk the right path. You’re no longer their child’s teammate, her partner in backyard cartwheels or winter sledding. You’re the daughter of dissidents. A feral creature, dirty and unclaimed. A girl who would, sooner or later, have to be answered for.

  Fran’s father silent by meal’s end. Fran’s mother flustered, a nervous bubbling, stories about the girls’ playing days, their pool summers. Her voice whittled by the time it reaches your ears, the acoustics of pipes and seashells. In the place of words, a rise of the room’s undertones. Clattering silverware and gnashing teeth. The slurp from glasses. The rattling breath through Fran’s father’s nose and the squish of your pulse. Eat, you think. Fuel. But with your next forced mouthful, your throat closes, and you crumble into a coughing fit. Fran and her parents turn to you. The room swims, their voices lost beneath your hacking. The vibrations within and the tears in your eyes. A sip from your glass, and the water slops down your chin. “I’m OK,” you say. Your napkin held to your mouth. The certainty you’ll collapse beneath their stares. The understanding you no longer belong here and how blind you’d been not to see it. Your mother’s face. Go!

  You and Fran return to her room. The rain steady on the roof. Fran’s parents clear the table. A discussion in the kitchen, and you and Fran sink to your knees, your ears pressed to the floor. Then the rush of water, the dishwasher’s hum. Fran returns to her desk. You go to the bathroom and sit on the tub’s side. Your heart fidgety. Your breath unable to sink deeper than your throat.

  You rub your temples. Perhaps tonight you’ll sleep. You’re so tired. Tired in body. Tired in mind. Tired of failed plans and foolish hope. You made a mistake coming here. The proof on Fran’s father’s face and in your gut’s woozy crawl. You can’t sit through another awkward dinner. Have a plan. Eyes closed, you stand outside your skin and see yourself projected into a movie. A girl who does things. Who overcomes. Who walked unafraid as a sixth grader into a high school math class. Who, with stick in hand, returned as many elbows as she received. Who punched poor Missy Blough in the mouth. You watch the movie-you wait until the others have fallen asleep. You’ll slip out, take Fran’s bike, and pedal through the rain. Have a plan, and with your uncles’ houses under surveillance, you’ll go to your grandmother’s. Forty minutes by car, and if you pedal all night and don’t get lost, perhaps you can be there by morning. Your grandmother still healthy but fading. Her hearing, her refusal to drive after dark. Your mother’s worries during the Shut-In, the invitations for her mother to come live with you, an old country house too much for a widow with failing knees, the winter snows and her reliance on a neighbor older than her to plow her lane. Come dawn, you’ll appear at her door, the sun low and the wet night behind you. A place for you to stay far from the history you’re anxious to escape. You’ll cut wood and tend to the fireplace and stove. You’ve driven your father’s truck— and with a lesson or two, you could plow the lanes of your grandmother and her neighbor. You step from the bathroom as Fran’s father calls up the stairwell.