The Magpie's Return

by Peter Wright

  The Deacon’s arms outstretched, a silent shepherding. His jacket open and glimpses of his holstered gun. Kayla follows the others down the center aisle. A hush, even for Betty.

  At the end of every other pew, a candle burns atop a metal holder. A corridor of soft light. More candles along the outer aisles and lining the altar. The current of passing bodies, and the candles flicker. Kayla’s hand brushes the pews’ curved wood. All of it beautiful. The girls segregate themselves, the pattern of morning convocation, whites to the right, reds to the left. Nurse Amy waves the girls to fill in the rows. The Deacon behind, his gaze on Betty as she and Kayla and the others from their pod settle into the last pew.

  The poet and the biologist didn’t believe, at least not in the way others did. Still, Kayla’s parents had her baptized. First Holy Communion and Confirmation. “Tradition,” her mother told her, “isn’t always a bad thing.” Her parents seldom spoke of God, but they praised this life’s thoughtless beauty. They urged their daughter to do unto others as she would have done unto herself. To know a tree by its fruit. To look into the eyes of another and not see a stranger.

  A rustling, the shedding of hats and gloves. The organ plays “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” Kayla’s foot topples the kneeler, and with it, a child’s mitten slips to the floor. Kayla bends forward. The mitten damp, so small she can only fit a few fingers inside. The vestibule doors open. A push of air, and the candles dance. Christ atop the alter, spasms across his bony ribs, an illusion of breath. The statue white plaster, as large as three men. Another man hung outside the church doors, and what, Kayla thinks, ever changes?

  The music stops. The priest ascends the pulpit. The candlelight on his glasses. A white robe and golden sash. He holds out his hands. He speaks of the children’s mass that ended an hour before, a smile as he recounts their joy. Their innocence. Kayla balls the mitten in her fist and wonders how many saw the man outside. The priest goes on—the season’s power to speak to our sense of wonder, to our common humanity. God’s kingdom can be their kingdom. Now. Tonight. All they have to do is open their hearts and accept His blessings.

  Heather rests her head against Kayla’s shoulder. Kayla the unbeliever soothed by the priest’s words. Maybe, she thinks, it’s enough to be safe, if just for the moment. And within that moment, if she has food in her stomach and is warm and is among people she’s bled for and would bleed for again—then that’s all the salvation she needs.

  The priest’s final words lost in Kayla’s daydream. The organ plays a four-bar intro. The priest raises his hands, and the girls stand. Chris hands Kayla a hymnal. A turn of thin pages. The organ pauses, and with the first note, the priest lifts his voice. The Deacon next. Donna’s choirgirl show. Kayla joins, surprising herself. “Oh, little town of Bethlehem . . .” A reflex, a stumble atop the chasm of what’s been. The hopes and fears of all the years.

  Tears warm her numb cheeks. She doesn’t cry for want. She cries from the swell of fullness, the realization she’s been stripped bare, and if the mob wants, they can beat her. Rape her. They can lift her from the ground with their twisted, fucking vine. They can take her last breath, and in return, she’ll keep something they can never have. The love she’s known. The memories of a little house in a little town.

  A smile through her tears. The words on her lips. How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. The sisters crying too. Betty with an arm around Linda. Chris slumps back in the pew. Kayla feels the current among them, a dark energy, the call of lost voices.

  A series of pops, a dozen echoes, this neighborhood of brick and narrow streets. The organ fumbles. A collective flinch in the pews. A bullet through the glass, and in the candles’ glimmer, the stained-glass spray. An unclaimed moment before the pane tumbles, a jigsaw piece removed from the garden’s betrayal. The pane strikes the floor, and what was broken breaks even more. The young whites scream as they push toward the center aisle. Through the gap, the whistle of wind, pinwheeling flurries. Shouts of men, and the gunfire draws near.

  The priest on his hands and knees, a scramble from the altar, his Bible tucked to his body. The Deacon stands, arms outstretched, a shadow of his looming savior. “Everyone down! Take cover!”

  The girls slide between the pews, a drowning in a wooden sea. Kayla lags, watching it all. Gunfire outside the church, screams inside. An explosion, close enough for the concussion to squeeze her heart. The surviving glass in the garden scene rattles. A gust, and the candle below dies. Heather grabs Kayla’s wrist and pulls her down. The five of them in awkward poses. Kayla thinks of her old history text, the trenches of the First World War. The sisters’ faces wet but their tears have stopped. All of them wide eyed. The priest bent double on his aisle walk, his white sash dragging. The Deacon and Panda Bear behind. Another explosion, their heads covered, and Kayla relishes their skittishness. Their pale fear.

  She doesn’t know who’s outside. Bandits. Anarchists. Zealots blinded by ideology. They could be the monsters who strangled a girl with her red bandanna beneath a smoke-smudged moon. They could burst through the church doors and gun them down, reds and whites alike, in the next minute. All that less important than Panda Bear’s cowering, the Deacon’s twitching lips. She turns to the others. The candlelight above, shadows below, their faces like fish beneath the clear shallows. Their smiles reflect hers. She reaches out, a linking of hands. This shared current. She doesn’t have to speak. None of them do.

  The gunfire recedes. A running battle. Sirens close in. Kayla sticks her head into the aisle. The Deacon in the vestibule. The oak doors open. A peek outside and the push of frigid air. He returns, a crouched scamper. “Come, girls. They’re gone, but we need to move quickly.” He claps his hands. “Everyone up. Let’s move.”

  The younger girls first. Hunched, their heads covered. A few crying. Nurse Amy among them, calm reassurances and urgings to hurry. The priest in the outer aisle. The long iron pole shakes in his hands, a snuffing of candles, a dark tide. Through the empty pane, the chuff of smoke. Kayla’s pew the last to empty. The girls hold hands, a greater gathering in the vestibule. The Deacon steps outside and surveys the street. His gun in hand.

  He turns back. The door opened, and framed behind him, the hanged man above his shoulder. “We’re going back. Pair up and look out for each other. The bad men are gone, but we’re not taking any chances. We’re hustling ourselves right back. Everyone has to stay together.”

  They set off. The Deacon in front. Nurse Amy next, the smaller children gathered around her, a clutching of her coat and hands. “Don’t look, honey,” an admonishment as they near the light pole. Heavy Metal in the group’s middle. Panda Bear the last out the door, but his steps faster as he passes the shell casings. Kayla and her podmates left to bring up the line’s end.

  “Hurry, hurry!” the Deacon calls, pausing before turning the corner, a moment’s wait, the streetlight’s glisten on his gun’s chrome. Gunfire, and is it closer or just louder here in the street? The smoke heavier. Panda Bear jogging now, the others ordered to keep pace. Kayla lets go of Heather’s hand. “Go,” Kayla says. “I’ll catch up.”

  Kayla’s shadow joins the hanged man’s as she crosses the street. She climbs the curb’s snow piles. Betty and the sisters pause. Panda Bear already around the corner.

  Kayla takes off her gloves. She tugs the rope’s frozen knots. The others join her. Betty jumps and grabs the rope, the sisters following, and their weight gives Kayla a breath of slack. The hanged man twists, a puppet’s protest. Heather on the knot’s other side, their fingers working in unison, pulling here, pushing there.

  One loop, two, and with a final tug, the knot gives way, a snake disappearing into itself. The rope uncoils from the porch railing. The tail end slips through the gloved hands of Betty and the sisters. A shifting of weight. The rope rises. The hanged man falls, a plummet and a thud. A stir of snow and cinders. The girls silent, a consideration of the thoughtless heap, the jumbled limbs, the rope’s coil. Kayla steps for
ward, but Betty grabs her arm. “Come on, girl.”

  The girls run. Chris slips on the ice as they round the corner, Linda helping her to her feet. The five of them catching up by the time the line reaches the front gate. The school’s lights blazing. The dark pushed away. The night as cold as any Kayla can remember.

  Christmas morning. The cafeteria crowded. The first shared meal for the whites and reds, separate tables, a boundary marked by the beaming Deacon and the equally glum Panda Bear. “I know it’s a day of miracles because my breakfast is finally warm,” Betty says. Sausage and sweet rolls for everyone. The dishes cleared. Carols play on the boom box resting atop the serving line counter. Come on, it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you. Nurse Amy delivers a shopping bag to each table. Inside, wrapped gifts, her instructions to wait until her say-so. Another surprise—each girl poured a cup of hot chocolate.

  Kayla cradles the cup in her palms. The cup warm and her nose held close. The drink watery yet its smell is distinct. Kayla’s thoughts cobwebbed with memories and too little sleep. A whiskey headache, extra sips and the serenade of gunfire.

  Nurse Amy sets a bag on their table. “Merry Christmas, girls.”

  “Merry Christmas,” the sisters say. Their sleepy unity.

  “Sit with us,” Betty says.

  “For a second.” She wedges between Betty and Heather. “Don’t think the others can wait much longer to open their things.”

  “Thank you,” Heather says. “For all this.”

  “You’re welcome. The Deacon did—”

  “We don’t want to thank him,” Betty says. “Just you.”

  “I’m grateful to be here with you.” A smile. “All of you.”

  “What about your family?” Linda asks.

  “I’m going back as soon as we’re done.”

  Linda rubs her bloodshot eyes. “Thank them for sharing you.”

  Heather puts her arm around Kayla’s shoulder. “And tell them Merry Christmas from your other family.”

  Nurse Amy stands, a brittle grin, and in Kayla, an understanding carried on the good scents of chocolate and sugar. Violence, bloodshed—they can’t eradicate decency. This woman, these girls—here’s a kind of love she’s never considered, the kind that grows from pain. A love stronger than hurt. A love that just might wait in the heart of strangers.

  Nurse Amy turns down the radio. Her voice raised over the clatter of cafeteria workers breaking down the line. “Thank you for your patience, everyone. And a special thanks to the Deacon for finding the funds in our tight budget to make this little celebration possible. And thank you to the cafeteria workers who took time from their families to make today’s breakfast special.”

  “We love you, Nurse Amy,” Betty shouts.

  “And I love you. All of you.” She pauses. “On your table is a bag, and in it are five wrapped gifts, one for everyone in your pod. When I give the word, select one, but don’t open it. Instead, check it out, give it a shake or sniff, and if you want to, swap it with a neighbor. And when everyone’s happy, then you can unwrap them. Not to ruin the surprise, but all the bags are the same, but each of the five presents are different. OK, ready?”

  She turns the radio back on, and new sounds join the music, the rustle of paper, bright voices. The girls at Kayla’s table laughing as they exchange packages, wrappings of blue and red and gold. The sisters trade gifts then trade back. Betty holds each package to her ear and shakes. “Let’s just open the damn things,” she says. “Everything belongs to all of us anyway.”

  “Amen,” Heather says.

  Betty rips her gift’s paper. Heather and the sisters more deliberate, a lifting of taped seams, the paper folded back. The girls smile, their presents held up for all to see. Slippers. A hairbrush. Notebooks and pens. A coffee mug filled with penny candy. For Kayla, hand lotion and lip balm. The gifts passed around, the others laughing when Kayla runs the brush over her cropped hair.

  Nurse Amy collects the wrappings. A final goodbye. Heather asks if her children still believe in Santa Claus. “Yes,” Nurse Amy said. “Although I’m guessing not for long.”

  Linda: “I believed in Santa until I was eleven.”

  Betty rolls her eyes. “Shocker.”

  The Deacon stands. His hands lifted, a beckoning for silence, his wait longer than normal, the giddiness of sweets and presents. The stillness allowed to linger before he speaks. His tone marches from hushed to impassioned. The miracle of God’s son walking among them. The presents the girls opened mere symbols of the Lord’s greater gifts—love, salvation. Gifts that outlast any toy. “Let us pray.”

  Kayla lowers her head, her hairbrush-holding hands folded in her lap. The Deacon’s right, the fucker. He needs a fairy tale’s lens to see it, but a fairy tale is OK if it works for him. Salvation, love—they know no special day of the year. They’re all around her, waiting, begging to be understood. Her parents’ words, and today, she understands them better than before. Her drift interrupted as Donna claims one of the table’s empty chairs.

  “No one asked you to park your skanky ass,” Betty hisses.

  “Come on, it’s Christmas.” Donna’s voice a whisper. A glance toward the Deacon. “And I’m going to have this smile on the whole time, and I suggest you do the same.” She speaks through clenched teeth. “We know you have our shit.”

  “Amen,” the Deacon says.

  Donna’s smile bright. “Amen.”

  Betty sips her hot chocolate. “You don’t know shit.”

  “It’s in the ceiling.” Donna pauses then laughs. “I can see it in your eyes.” She points to Linda. “Especially yours. God, you’re dull. I didn’t know for sure before, but I do now. Ashley should have looked there first during the fire drill, but she’s not the smartest one either, is she?”

  One of the cafeteria workers turns the radio back on. I’ll have a blue Christmas without you. Heather’s voice low and even. “Go fuck yourself.”

  “No, go fuck yourselves. You see the twins over there?” Ashley and Amanda stand near the Deacon, a nod when Donna looks their way. “They’re waiting for me to give them a little wave so they can share the news.” She scratches her chin. “With all that shit, I’m guessing you ladies will be in iso for a week or two. All except you.” She smiles at Betty. “I think the Deacon’s as tired of your shit as the rest of us. I’m thinking he’s just looking for an excuse to kick your ass out of here. Maybe you and Carolyn can hook up and be bunkies again at the girl’s center. I hear it’s a good idea to have someone there to watch your back.”

  Betty leans forward, her elbows on the table. “If we were alone, I’d punch your fucking face in.”

  Donna mirrors her pose. “And I’d slit your fucking throat.” She leans back. “And I’d do the same to the rest of you. You know why?” She stands and brushes off her top. “Because every time I look at you, I see the fuckers who killed my father. And I see the fuckers who’d kill me if they had the chance.” She turns to Kayla. “You’re going to use that big brain of yours to sneak back to your room, get our shit, and stash it on the top landing outside iso. Ten minutes. Don’t make me wait.”

  She turns. A wave for the twins, and the three of them reclaim their seats. Donna’s laughter rises. That’s when those blue memories start calling . . . The joy Kayla felt moments before evaporates, a disappearance that leaves her gutted. Chris breaks the silence. “What’re we going to do?”

  Betty slumps back and pushes the slippers across the table. “Go ahead, Oakmont. We’ll make sure no one but the blond bitch leaves. If they do, we’re having it out today. All of it.” She turns to Heather and the sisters. “You with me?”

  “Yep,” Heather says. The sisters nod.

  “If the gingers and the others stay, we’ll do the same. We’ll take our lumps and pull back and regroup. Most of all, we can’t lose the truck keys.” Betty turns to Kayla. “Get to the stash. Save the good stuff for us. Give them the fucking peppermint schnapps.”

  “An
d the menthols,” Linda says.

  The Deacon sits with the younger whites, their heads lowered, a circle of linked hands. Heavy Metal’s attention on unwrapping his present. Kayla’s exit deliberate, not a glance back. The cafeteria door closes, the smothering of music and voices. She jogs, and around her, a blur of the hallway’s Christmas decorations. The hand-painted banners—PURITY. A security camera’s unblinking eye. Kayla’s pace faster, and she sees herself both in the moment and as a ghost passing across unwatched monitors.

  The stairs. Her pod. She works quickly. The chair arranged, a step onto the desk. The trickle of dust from the ceiling tile. A frantic groping—the truck keys and hammer. She raises herself onto her toes, reaching further, items examined and returned, others slid into her pockets—cigarettes, lip balm, gum. The peppermint schnapps, another bottle gripped as she returns the tile. She climbs down. She pulls up her shirt, the first pint slid into her panties. Donna enters and tosses a cardboard box on Heather’s bunk.

  “In here,” she says.

  Kayla hands her the bottles and empties her pockets. The box small enough to be tucked under Donna’s arm. She finishes her packing. “That’s not enough.”

  The morning’s filtered light. Flurries again. Church bells, and Kayla imagines a Christmas service, wind through a broken window. A child without a mitten. A hanged man lying in the street. “That’s all you’re getting.”