The Magpie's Return

by Peter Wright

  Lunch. The reds lined outside the cafeteria. Betty in front. Kayla and Heather next. Chris and Linda with Panda Bear at the line’s end. The whites gather on the door’s other side. Stares from Donna and the redheads. Betty and Kayla staring back, and Kayla thinks of zoo animals. The bristle of fur, the coiled muscles. Kayla counts out her steps, a movie in her mind. These past three nights of rehearsing. The go-ahead given after Zach’s morning delivery. Kayla conscious of her body and the passing seconds, and she imagines their waiting integration—her body moving, the dance waiting for its moment. She leans against the wall. The crinkle of paper. A banner running from the door to the line’s end. PURITY IS OURS.

  Betty turns. “Ready?”

  Kayla nods. Her heartbeat thick. Heather silent, intent. Her hand reaches for Kayla’s. Her fingers cold. “It’ll be OK,” Kayla whispers.

  “OK, sisters. Showtime.” Betty steps out and straddles the centerline. She waves and yells to Panda Bear. “Hey! I got to go to the bathroom.”

  He shakes his head. “You can wait—”

  “Can’t wait.” Betty rubs her belly. “I got the flow. Bad. I got to go now. Like right now.”

  He sighs. “OK. Go in. Just you. Tell them I said it was OK.”

  A whisper. “Time to shine, ladies.” Betty pushes the door, her voice low as Donna steps back. “What’re you looking at, bitch?” Heavy Metal at the tray drop-off, Betty calling as she jogs past. “He gave me permission, sir! Got to hit the john!”

  Kayla at the front now. A glass pane between her and Donna. An exaggerated chewing of her gum, a flip of her ponytail. Kayla turns to Heather. “Ready?”

  A nod, and with it, Kayla throttles her, a sharp push, a stumble into the girls behind her. Heather’s push back weak, still Kayla acts her role. She grabs two fistfuls of Heather’s scrub and yanks her across the centerline. Heather bony and bird-like, limp, her hair masking her face. Kayla on her, her left hand an anchoring grip, her right hand raised. The smiles and laughs of their rehearsals replaced by grunts, the smack of flesh. Kayla’s blows sharp but careful to strike Heather’s neck and shoulders. The other reds circle, the dividing line’s authority lost in the upheaval. Donna’s palms slap the door’s glass. The whites’ voices lift in a dog pack’s howl. Panda Bear pushes his way forward. “Hey! Hey!”

  Heather’s eyes dazed, a loose grip on Kayla’s shirt. “You can do this,” Kayla whispers. Her next slap harder. Heather’s head turned, a twirl of hair. “Hit me,” Kayla whispers.

  Heather springs forward. Kayla crouches. Another practiced move. Kayla hunkered low, Heather striking her shoulders and back. Kayla grabs her waist, and they hit the floor. The wall’s banner rips, and the paper droops over them. Heather’s initial paralysis atoned for in a series of slaps and shrill cries.

  The girls grapple. Turning and clutching moves made to evade Panda Bear’s grasps. Then the eruption at the line’s other end, and through the forest of legs, a view of another brawl. Linda pulls her sister’s hair, Chris bent forward as her arms flail. Panda Bear’s hands on Kayla’s side, her shirt pushed up, her bra exposed. The cafeteria door bursts open. The reds pushed aside until Heavy Metal reaches the sisters.

  The Deacon’s voice slices through the din. The reds ordered to sit against the wall, their hands on their heads. The Purity banner torn, and the sections that remain sag over the girls’ shoulders. Heather on top of Kayla, their faces flushed, a private tent beneath Heather’s hanging hair. Heather smiles. A whisper. “We did it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sorry.”

  They roll onto their side. Panda Bear hooks a forearm around Kayla’s waist and lifts. Nurse Amy hurries the whites down the hall’s other side. Jeers as they pass, laughter. Panda Bear sets Kayla down. The Deacon grabs her, his grip tight on her arm, a rough pushing to the line’s end where Heavy Metal struggles to separate the sisters.

  “Get them all to my office!” the Deacon snaps. Kayla’s pulse against his grip. He pulls her close. His body shakes. “Ungrateful, the lot of you!”

  Their second night in isolation. Kayla now accustomed to the third floor’s rattling windows. The ceiling’s drip and the scurry of mice beneath her cot.

  Dinner behind them. Their food cold by the time Panda Bear brought their plates. The girls ate huddled by the door, eavesdropping on Panda Bear’s stairwell phone calls. Linda mouthing the words, Oh baby, you know it’s not like that. A final, cooing goodbye, and the girls tiptoed their retreat. He stacked their plates on a tray and called from the other side of the door. “Lights out in an hour.” But the truth was the third floor never went totally dark. A shaded bulb over the toilet, an anemic and angled light. A room of long shadows.

  With Panda Bear gone, the girls kneel above their pod’s ceiling hiding place. They rap on the floorboards, a rhythm Betty answers with a hammer’s tap. Betty’s voice buried beneath the wood: “Goodnight you fucking troublemakers.” Next they rearrange their cots. One on each end, nimble steps, the cots set down with a delicate touch of metal on wood. A square formed, and in the center, a salvaged crate. Before settling in, the girls gather by the windows. Winter’s early dark, and the sisters breathe on the glass, their names and pictures of suns and sailboats traced in the fog. Kayla’s gaze stretching. The lights along the river. The old iron bridge to the other shore.

  The door opens. The girls freeze. Rearranged cots would warrant another lecture from the Deacon. Maybe another night in iso. The greater fear they’ll be separated, half cast to the other side of the ceiling-to-floor junk pile, but their dread turns to smiles. Nurse Amy, her arms full, blankets, a plastic shopping bag.

  “Special delivery.” Nurse Amy sets her things on Kayla’s cot. She shivers. “Jesus, it’s cold.”

  “You get used to it,” Chris says. “Kind of.”

  “I’ll talk to the Deacon. In the meantime, I brought some things.” She considers the beds’ arrangement. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “We move them back before they come up with breakfast,” Linda says.

  “That’s smart.” Nurse Amy opens the bag and hands a rubber-banded deck of cards to Linda, a pad and pen to Heather, and two candy bars to Kayla. “Not sure if all the cards are in the deck. I got them from the common room. And hide the wrappers when you’re done.”

  “Thanks,” Chris says, the other girls echoing, thanks, thanks.

  A hug from Heather before she steps back. “Next time bring a mousetrap.”

  “I’ll tell the Deacon about that, too.”

  Kayla: “Perhaps that isn’t the best idea. Telling him, I mean. Don’t want to give him an excuse to make another trip up.”

  Nurse Amy folds her bag. “You’re not enjoying your morning prayer sessions?”

  “Not saying that.” Kayla smiles. “Just that he doesn’t have to do anything special for us. We won’t be up here too much longer.”

  “We won’t, will we?” Linda asks.

  “Shouldn’t be.” Nurse Amy pauses. “There’s a lot of grumbling downstairs, especially among the whites, which doesn’t make sense.”

  The sisters lower their heads. Heather and Kayla silent. Nurse Amy sighs. “Just be smart when you come back, OK?” They follow her to the door. She turns before leaving. “Everyone’s going to be keeping an eye on you until whatever you started works itself out. Just don’t give them another excuse to put you back up here.”

  The girls retreat to their bunks. The single light and the windows’ dull shine, a room of underwater shadows. The candy bars divided and shared. The chocolate allowed to melt on Kayla’s tongue. A luxury, a taste from her childhood. Linda shuffles the cards while Chris explains a game’s rules, a variation of rummy, the circulation of unwanted cards, triples and runs laid down and played upon. Linda peeks at Kayla’s cards and suggests strategies, the sisters cheering Kayla and Heather when they make a good play. Chris the game’s winner, her last cards laid out with a flourish and a soft clap.

  A new game, and Linda sh
uffles. Her smiled wilts. “What if there’s a fire? Would they remember us?”

  “Linda,” Chris says.

  Heather picks up her dealt hand. “It’s OK. I’ve thought the same myself.”

  Gusts shake the windows. Kayla imagines the wind washing over the roof’s slope, the shiver of wood and shingles. The light above the toilet shines in the window, dull yet brighter than the night. Kayla thinks of the dollhouse she played with as a child. A roof that swung open. The hours she spent imagining the lives inside.

  Old John leads the girls back to their pod. Ten minutes until lights out, the windows dark. Welcoming voices in the red hallway. The younger girls pause as they file into the bathroom. Kayla and Heather and the sisters in their coats, their hands filled, their toothbrushes and washrags, pillows and blankets. Their procession slowed by Old John’s stoop, his right boot’s rhythmic scrape.

  Betty on her cot, a glance before returning her attention to her magazine. “They still fighting, John? Don’t want to find myself in the middle of a riot.”

  He adjusts his belt. The jangle of keys as he catches his breath. “No, they’re all made up, aren’t you girls?”

  Chris nods. “Yes, sir.”

  He grins. “You’re good kids. You probably don’t hear that enough, but you are.”

  Betty lays her magazine on her cot and stands. She raises her fists, a boxer’s stance. “Except when they’re duking it out. Then you got to watch yourself.” She lowers her hands. “You on all night, John?”

  The lights flicker. He coughs. His words choked. “All night.”

  “You OK?” Linda asks.

  “I’m good, thanks.” Another cough. “You’re good girls. Better get turned in.”

  Betty winks at Kayla. “Still don’t know if I’m comfortable sleeping amidst all this bad blood.”

  Old John shuts the door halfway. “Just keep it quiet now after lights out, OK?”

  Betty calls as he closes the door: “You’re a good one, too, John. No one probably tells you that enough either.”

  Smiles. Betty with a hug for each. “Damn if you gals don’t have the whole place talking.” She reaches Kayla, a breath-squeezing embrace, a slap on the back. Here, Kayla understands, is her new family. A unit born from the worst of this life, yet, at least for now, stronger than their sufferings, loyal in blood and action and love. Betty steps back. Another flicker, a spasm of dark.

  “That means bedtime, ladies,” Betty says.

  “Wait,” Heather says, “did you—”

  Old John’s voice in the hallway: “Lights out, ladies. Get yourselves tucked in.”

  Betty settles onto her cot. “You heard the man.”

  “Come on, Betty,” Linda says. “Did you get it or not?”

  A final flicker. Betty’s voice in the dark. “Did my little chipmunk lose all sense of patience up in iso? Come on, sister, have a little trust in the system.”

  Kayla stretches out. This cot no different than the one in iso, still she feels better here. She studies the light upon the ceiling. She feels the tug of sleep and is thankful for it. She lays still, the machine’s hum comforting tonight. The furnace, the water’s flow. The sisters whispering, their cots already pushed together.

  “Shh, you two. You’re keeping me up,” Betty says.

  Chris sits up. “How long do we have to wait?”

  “It’s been like a half hour,” Linda says.

  Betty laughs. “It’s been five minutes. If that.”

  Linda climbs out of bed. She wraps a blanket around her shoulders and claims a seat beneath the window. “I’m waiting right here.” Her sister lifts her blanket from her cot and joins her. The two of them sit cross-legged on the floor. “Me, too,” she says.

  Betty sits up. “Look at you. Like a pair of mini fucking Gandhis.” Betty gets out of bed. She climbs atop a chair, then her desk. The ceiling tile pushed aside. Kayla joins the sisters. Heather slips into her coat, the hood’s collar a furry halo, and stands by Betty’s desk.

  “So?” Linda asks.

  The angled light shines upon Betty’s smile and cuts into the dark space above the pushed-aside ceiling tile. “Sooooo we did pretty good.” She tosses Heather packs of gum. Heather hands the packs to Kayla, and Kayla hands them to Linda who arranges them in the semicircle’s center.

  Chris claps, a soft meeting of palms. “Yeah.”

  Betty reaches up and cradles two, three, four cigarette packs in her arm. “And when I say good, I mean like wildest, fucking dreams good.”

  Heather gives the cigarettes to Kayla. Their pile growing, a hand-to-hand relay of candy, magazines, hand lotion, lip balm.

  “This is awesome,” Linda says.

  “If that’s awesome, then tell me what this is.” Betty produces two fifths, one brown, one clear. She hands them to Heather then retrieves three pints. The glass shivers in her grip, bony, trilling notes.

  “Whoa,” Chris says.

  Betty climbs down. “Although one of the fifths is peppermint schnapps and two of the cigs are menthols, both of which are gross, if you ask me. Still—”

  “Still we did pretty fucking good.” Heather holds up one of the pints. The light simmers in the liquid. “It makes it worthwhile. And then some.”

  Linda holds a bottle in each hand. “And then some more knowing those bitches got nothing.”

  “I’m thinking it’s a three-swig night,” Chris says.

  “No way, sister,” Betty says. “Tomorrow’s Sunday. An extra hour of sleep. We’re polishing off one of these little fuckers tonight.”

  “What about the whites?” Heather asks. “What’re they saying?”

  Betty gropes around the ceiling’s opening. “There’s some looks, but we got ourselves a little cover due to old Zack getting his sorry ass fired. Which might suck long term, but I’m not even thinking about that tonight. Donna and the rest don’t know if he even made a delivery in the first place.”

  “They catch him and Donna?” Linda asks.

  “Worse.” Betty replaces the ceiling tile. A smile as she looks upon them. She opens her clenched hand. A ring around her finger, and on the ring, a glimpse of silver. “The stupid fuck lost the pickup keys.”

  “Whoa,” Chris says.

  “Whoa is right.” Betty climbs down. “Now let’s crack a fucking seal. But not on that schnapps.” She sticks out her tongue. “Menthols and peppermint schnapps. Those bitches got some bad fucking taste.”

  A waiting room. Slater’s uniform on the wall. The gold shoulder cord slithers, a headless snake, a continuous coil. Kayla sits alone. A check-in area, a nurse behind a sliding glass window. The light behind the glass a luminous dust, and the nurse’s skin washes away. Music plays, distant, tinny. Just beneath the tune’s surface, a one-sided conversation, words she can’t understand. A single door beside the glass window, and Kayla is confused—is this the door into the waiting room or the doctor’s office? Water flows beneath the door, the tide ankle-deep in moments. Kayla unfazed, the water clean and warm, all of it normal. The water rises. She’s happy, incredibly happy. A mirror appears on the opposite wall, and in the glass, her reflection only younger, then older, then younger again. The light from the nurse’s window strikes the water, an angle that brings a perfect sheen upon the surface. She reaches down, a cupped handful, the shine of jewels. The water not water but a substance more viscid, a slow melt between her fingers—

  —the fire alarm wails. The call knifes into her throat, her blood. The office’s furniture and walls dissolve. In their place, the pod’s reality. The cold. Her hard mattress. The streetlight’s reach across the ceiling.

  She sits up. Linda fumbles into her coat, Chris gropes beneath her bunk. Betty’s sleep-craggy voice, “The fuck?” The door flings open, an invasion of light. The alarm given depth. Echoes from the hallway. Old John’s stooped silhouette. “Fire, girls! Get your shoes and coats. Hurry now!”

  The sisters ready first. Betty smears a toothpaste dab onto everyone’s finger, mint to cl
oak the night’s whiskey and cigarettes. “I don’t smell smoke, do you?” Chris asks. Her mouth twisted as she works the toothpaste over her gums.

  Kayla licks the toothpaste from her fingers. The taste a harkening to her dream. The doctor’s office, yes, but the notion melts beneath the hallway’s chorus, the voices sleepy and confused and scared. Kayla zips her coat. Heather motionless at the edge of her cot.

  “Come on, babe.” Betty kneels and works a sneaker onto Heather’s foot. Kayla joins her. Heather’s legs limp. The sisters wrap a blanket over her shoulders. The hallway goes black, the only illumination the alarm’s silver strobe.

  Chris sniffs. “I think I smell smoke now.”

  Betty grabs Heather’s hands. “We’re all going together, girl,” Betty says.

  Old John at the door. His silhouette twitches beneath the strobes. “Hurry, girls. We can’t leave anyone behind.”

  “We’re not,” Betty says, and with a tug, she pulls Heather up. Kayla on her other side, her arm tight around Heather’s waist. “One step at a time, girl,” Betty says.

  Heather’s body rigid at the core, her limbs limp. Betty and Kayla walk, and Heather’s sneakers drag over the tile. The hallway, and the sisters look back, the strobe freezing their worried expressions. They file down the red stairwell. The alarms louder here, painful. The younger girls rush ahead, their hands clamped over their ears. The blanket slips from Heather’s shoulders. “Leave it,” Betty says. Old John waves them on with one hand, the other clutching the handrail, a pause on every step. Heather’s expression the only unchanging element in the lights’ captured heartbeats. Her eyes hollow, a focus beyond the school’s walls and fences. Kayla looks back. A form on the top landing. A flash. A mane of red hair. The figure there then not, and Kayla wonders if she saw anything at all.