Four and Twenty Blackbirds (23 page)

In that moment, she and I understood each other for the first time. We both understood that I had leverage.

"You really do need this, don't you? Or at least you think you do."

"Yes, I do need it."

"Then tell me where you get it from, and I'll leave you the last bit."

"You already know. I get it from a friend in Florida."

"Who?"

"No one you know." As she made her curt replies, she was watching me intently. Even in her fear, she was curious. She was expecting something, but what? What could the stuff possibly do to me? My stomach was sloshing and queasy, and burned in a place or two where the liquid rolled against it, but I did not feel any different.

Not better, not . . . worse.

"Satisfy my curiosity." My voice came louder than I meant for it to. "Who lives in Highlands Hammock?"

She balked, or stalled. God. We
were
related. We used all the same tricks. I wondered if I was so transparent when I tried to manipulate people. Surely not, or I'd never have gotten anywhere in life. "No one lives there. It's just a swamp. It's a park. Nobody could live there, even if they wanted to."

"Maybe it's an alligator that sends you this medicine, then. Or a musk . . . rat." I wanted to be cocky, but it was coming out wrong. I almost giggled. "A muskrat. I don't even know what one looks like. They're something like possums, I bet, but they live where it's wet. I guess. I don't know. . . ." I let it trail off.

With one hand, I reached behind me and pulled out one of the dining room chairs. I meant to take it casually, but instead I dropped onto it like a stone. My legs were going numb, and after them my arms and hands.

"Eden? Eden?" I dimly saw Harry rush to my side and take the bottle from my hand, but I didn't feel his touch on my shoulder or the pressure of his fingers moving mine. I only saw Eliza's wicked blue eyes, though they were not regarding me with triumph. They were still sad, and a touch angry.

"What . . . is . . . this?" My tongue felt like Silly Putty. I couldn't maneuver it around my palate. I was weakening by the moment; but I desperately assured myself that I must not be dying, or else Eliza would be laughing some horrid laugh. My fright forced the words together faster when I repeated them a second time. "What is this?"

Surely I was right. I could not be dying, for in those frigid eyes I saw only resentment when she replied. "My magic."

And then the room went dark.

Completely black.

Eliza was gone, and Harry was gone, and though the long table and the chairs and the plates and silverware had never been cleared away, all of these things were gone.

My stomach had stopped hurting, though, and that was nice. I could breathe again, and that was nice too. I could still taste the concoction in the back of my mouth, clinging to my tonsils and refusing to slide down all the way, and that was not so nice. But I was no longer afraid.

Not at first.

Not until I began to see that although Harry and Eliza were no longer with me, I was not alone in this new darkness. Beside me, behind me, around me, and above me, there was movement. The fast kisses of displaced air tickled the hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck until they all stood at attention, waiting to be touched.

"Hello?"

A match was struck.

In that brief flare I saw the sketch outlines of a face, but the face drew back as the flame caught a wick. Now there was a candle, and there was some light, but I still could not see my company. The face and its owner had retreated to a corner away from the candle, which seemed to have been lit for my benefit.

Against the wall leaned a man, tall and broad of shoulder, with his arms crossed and his head down. His skin was not as dark as Dave's but not as light as Lulu's or mine. His hair stood out in a curly halo that cast just enough shadow to obscure his face in the half-light, half-dark where we met.

I waited for him to speak, but he did not. Instead, he pointed at the candle—no, he pointed at the bottle beside the candle. I stood, and was glad to note I once more had the use of my legs. I picked up the bottle and read the label.

Drink me.

"But I already did," I said to the man in the corner.

"Yes, that's why you're here, baby." Every word was rich and low, and charged with energy. Each word, falling coolly into place in a resonant line of displeasure, made me more uncertain and more afraid.

"Where am I?" I didn't know what else to ask.

He did not move. I did not even see his jaw line rise or fall when he replied. "Here with me. You're not supposed to be. You're not who I thought you were."

"You expected Eliza?"

He nodded. "You're not supposed to be here, but here you are. May as well make the most of it. You're on your way to find me anyway. You're on your way home to me."

"Who . . . who are you?"

He shifted his weight and uncrossed his arms, then passed along the wall like a shadow until he stood before me. In his left hand he held the bottle. I'd not seen him pick it up, but when I looked over my shoulder at the candle, the medicine was missing. He held it out to me, label forward so I could read its command again.

"But—but that's how I got into this mess," I argued weakly. "I don't want to drink anything else unless I can readily identify it."

His right hand was on my throat.

Just like that. So quickly I didn't have time to start, or scream, or fight. I tried to push against him but his body was like flesh-painted steel. Even with my feet against his pelvis and my nails digging into his forearm, he took no notice. I could not help but think that he was not really there at all, not in any way that I could fight him. I was in his world, one way or another, and at his mercy—if he had any.

His wrist shifted, providing me with the two options of letting him crush my windpipe or leaning my head back. I leaned back. He slipped two of his massive long fingers up around the joints of my jaw the way you force a cat to take a pill, and he poured the liquid down my gullet.

The last thing I remembered before waking was that it was not like the first brew. It was almost sweet and not half so bad, which didn't make it good, but I didn't gag on it, either.

"What are you doing to me with this stuff?" I gurgled as the room started to fold in upon itself.

I'm getting you ready for it. I'm making you strong.

8
In Search of Lost Time

I awakened alone in my own car, in the passenger side. Brilliant lights were shining down into my face, though it was clearly nighttime. 9:03, according to the dashboard clock. I blinked a dozen times and wiped at my eyes, then opened them enough to realize that my car was parked beside a gas pump, and that I was beneath the neon and fluorescent advertisements of a large truck stop. The dense, sharp stink of gasoline crept up my nostrils and made me dizzier still than I already was.

Harry's face appeared at the driver's-side window. He juggled with a bag and my keys, opened the door, and climbed in beside me.

"Doughnut? Or chips? Soda? I thought you might be hungry when you woke up."

I stared stupidly at the bag, and at Harry. Food. Yum? "Give me a minute," I mumbled, adjusting the seat belt to wear a new and less painful groove into my shoulder. At least he'd thought to strap me in. "Where are . . . how long have . . . what . . . ?"

He removed a candy bar and set the brown paper bag with the extra food on the floor at my feet. After locating the drinkholders, he set his soft drink aside and put the key in the ignition. "Well, let's see. You've been asleep all day. I took your car because if I'd taken Eliza's she would have probably reported it stolen and then we'd really be screwed. I went back to your hotel, paid for another night so
I
could get some rest, then put you back in the car and started out about two hours ago."

"I slept through all that?"

"Yes, and all this while I've been toting you around like a sack of potatoes. Allow me to add that you're heavier than you look."

"Thanks. Lotsa muscle. Meat on my bones, or something." I squirmed in the seat and rolled my head and shoulders back and forth, trying to crack my neck. It didn't work. The stiffness remained, and so did my bewilderment. In the near distance I saw a stream of steady headlights that suggested an interstate. The presence of half a dozen other gas stations and fast-food stops supported that assessment, and furthermore hinted that we were at an exit. "Where are we?" I asked, hoping to learn something more specific about our location.

"Somewhere in south Georgia. I don't think we've hit Tifton, but we will soon."

"Why . . . why are we driving through Georgia?" I asked, though the obvious answer was "To get to Florida," because that's really the only reason anyone ever drives through south Georgia.

"Because it's rather hard to get to Florida without doing so," Harry confirmed. "Well, unless you're coming from the west. Or unless you want to go many hours out of your way. Or I suppose you could swim for it. But in the interest of efficiency, we're taking the direct route."

"Why are we . . . oh." Yes, the letter.

He cleared his throat and looked both ways before he pulled out towards the interstate and into the merging traffic. "I didn't have any better ideas, and you seemed pretty sure there was something important in Highlands Hammock. I thought it might be worth achance to see. Actually, I thought I'd head for St. Augustine first. There's a whole library full of reference materials at the church. Perhaps we can find a good starting point there. It's not that far out of the way, anyway. Just a few hours."

"Oh."

I couldn't complain. His plan was as good as anything I could have come up with, maybe better. I didn't tell him about the man in the dark room, for fear he'd assume it was a dream or my imagination. Instead, I rode beside him in silence for a time, trying to get my thoughts to line up in a row. It half worked. I had a half plan hatching, and a half idea of what might be going on farther down south than I'd ever been before.

Never before? Could that be right? No.

Even as I turned the thought over I sensed it couldn't be. I was born and bred in the Tennessee mountains, on the banks of the river that runs through the rocks, but I knew somehow about green-gray mud and stubby cypress knees. I knew the rotting stench of an alligator's hole and the way the dull, curly moss hung down from the tree limbs to trail lazily in the water. I knew . . . I knew many things I shouldn't have. Things I didn't learn from the Discovery Channel or from Hollywood.

And strangest of all, I thought I knew who was waiting for me.

I just didn't know what he wanted.

9
Unbearable Lightness

We arrived at St. Augustine around midnight, and the city was completely quiet.

I was tired of being asleep, and I was happy that we'd soon be out of the car. I don't like long trips unless I'm driving, and I wasn't feeling well enough to demand that Harry hand over the keys. My stomach lurched with every bump we took, and my eyeballs rocked about in my skull, settling on strange, small things, but refusing to focus on the road in front of us. It was better to let him act the chauffeur, especially considering that he knew where we were going and I didn't. And then I could continue to sleep off and on, with the seat leaned as far back as I could get it, and my head lolling every time I nodded off. It's a terrible way to doze, and it left me cranky and restless, itching to get free of the vehicle.

By the time we hit the city limits, I was desperate to stretch my legs, but Harry refused to pull over, even for a bathroom break. We were almost there, he insisted, but the church was down farther towards the old part of town near the fort. It was not terrifically far from the lion's bridge.

My groggy interest was ever-so-slightly piqued. Visions of shining armor and billowing flags filled my imagination. Knights and such. Or possibly pirates, and gold. "There's a fort? And lions on a bridge? Cool."

"The Castillo de San Marcos. The Spanish built it in the 1600s to protect the settlement from the British, and it worked, too. The town burned a few times, but the fort was only occupied by the English for about twenty years. Considering that Spain had it for a couple of centuries, it's a pretty good track record. The church is down the street a couple of blocks towards—towards the shrine. We'll be there in a minute."

"And there are . . . lions? I like lions." This sounded like the sort of place a Leo could make herself at home.

"Statues, dear. Not real lions."

"Oh." Disappointed but still determined to stay awake, I pressed on with the questions. "What shrine?"

He waggled his fingers towards the window and said something vague about Mary and milk. "There's a shrine, with a big metal cross. It marks the first place in the New World where Christian mass was ever held. But we're not going quite that far down the coast."

"Too bad. That sounds like it might be . . . uh, informative."

He tossed his shoulders in a quick shrug. "Yes, well, next time we're passing through I'll be sure and run you by the gift shop. You can get a mug, or a candle, and feel terrifically blessed, though unless you're Catholic, I'm not sure why you'd be interested."

As we drove through the narrow streets, still brick in places, I was strongly reminded of a Mardis Gras trip I took to the Vieux Carré in New Orleans, except that the trimmings were all Spanish instead of French and there were no drunken partyers stumbling along the sidewalks wearing plastic beads. Old stone storefronts with overhanging balconies graced the curbs, and the sense of antiquity was undeniable even in the dark.

This had been a colony for fifty years when the settlers at Jamestown arrived a few states north, and that realization threw my sense of historical perspective askew. Despite what the New England snobs think,
this
small city is the oldest European civilization in America—or the oldest consistently occupied one, as I would later learn. Anglo-centrists be damned.

When we stopped at a streetlight, a man in full Spanish military silver was perched atop a big brown horse beside us. He shifted his weight in the saddle and the joints in his armor clanked and ground together. A sword hung by his side, down close to my window, almost tapping against the glass by my cheek. The horse snorted and swung its huge head my way, then whinnied and flipped its mane. Its rider wrapped the reins another loop around his wrist and nudged the animal with his heels until it loped into a trot.

Long after they'd disappeared down one of the side streets I could still hear the heavy, metallic jostling of the armor and the resounding clunks of the horse's shoes on the pavement. Harry did not act as though he had seen them, or at least he wasn't paying any attention.

Rather than jump to ghostly conclusions, I tried to be nonchalant. It might have been my hyperactive imagination, after all. Or—another thought crossed my mind. "Hey, Harry, do people run around in costume here, like in New Orleans or in those, um, historic places?" I asked. "Like they do at Jamestown," I added, since that was the only one I could think of off the top of my addled head.

My companion nodded. "Oh yes. All the time. Much of the old city is a state park. There are many living history exhibits—they do historical reenactments and the like. You can even take guided 'ghost' tours now. It's ridiculous."

"Oh," I sighed, relieved. Then it wasn't just me. I hoped.

Along a rooftop a woman in long, full skirts was pacing back and forth, holding a lantern. Even as far away as we were I saw the light casting warped shadows across her face, illuminating her in orange streaks and bursts. One of her hands was clenching the lantern's ring and the other was holding a shawl snug across her shoulders. Although she was moving back and forth, wearing a path on the roof like a tiger in a cage, her eyes never left the east.

"Harry?" I said, pointing a finger up at the lonely woman as if to ask about her.

He glanced out the window. "What? Oh, the roof. Yes, a lot of the older houses have long balconies like that. It's called a widow's walk. Sailor's wives would wait up there at night, watching for the ships to come in from the ocean. There's more than one tragic tale of husbands and lovers who never returned."

"I can imagine." But I preferred not to.

I wanted to ask if he'd seen the woman in the shawl or the armored conquistador, but I stopped myself short. He said it was normal to see people dressed up. He said this was a state park and it happened all the time, so that's what I was going to believe was going on. But after midnight? On deserted streets? There was no one to watch and appreciate the historicity of it all. Were these people paid, or were they fanatical reenactors? In Tennessee they call some of the Civil War buffs stitch counters because they insist so particularly upon attention to detail. Surely this was more of the same. Yes, surely.

I held my tongue. If Harry had seen them too, then all was well. If he had not, then I was seeing ghosts again, which was rarely an indication that good things were to follow.

Judging by the yellow of the opposing traffic lights, our red one was about to change. I peered back up at the balcony for one last look, but it was vacant. Either she'd gone inside or . . . or she'd simply gone. I quit straining against the seat belt and rested my head on the back of the seat. The light switched to green and Harry took his foot off the brake and pressed it against the gas. We were the only vehicle in sight, and it was strange for me to hear the reverberations of my own car's engine humming against the stone and stucco storefronts. Down at the end of the next street I saw something like a tower with a bell rearing up into the low skyline, and I thought with relief how close we were to the church. Yes, almost there.

Then my heart lurched up past my tongue.

"
Harry!
Oh my God,
stop!
"

He slammed both shoes down onto the brake and we left a short, smelly trail of black rubber on the pavement. But we did it—we stopped just before we hit her.

Yes, there she was.

The woman from the roof, standing in the middle of the road. I didn't see the lantern; she must have put it down. Both hands were now holding her shawl against her chest. "What? What?" Harry sputtered, knuckles white around the ridges of the steering wheel. "What was that for?"

Oh no. My previous relief evaporated. "You don't see her, then?"

"See
who
?" He was panting, legs still stretched taut against the floorboards, holding the brake and clutch down as far as they would go. "What are you talking about?"

I turned to him, waving my hand towards the road. "Right there—in the street! Oh, dear God—please tell me you can see her. Please don't tell me—"

She smacked her hands against my window and I cut myself off with a shriek.

"
Donde es
—?" I caught that much, but the two years of high school Spanish I slept through hadn't taught me enough to understand the rest.

The woman pounded her hands against the glass and shouted her question again.

"Drive, Harry! Get us out of here!" I begged, but I was nearly in his lap and he couldn't reach the gearshift. I covered my eyes and shook my head. "Lady, I can't help you. I'm so sorry—I can't help you."

"Who are you talking to? There's no one there, Eden," he insisted, but his voice was not steady. Whether or not he believed me, he shoved me back into my seat and obediently pulled the car forward, leaving the specter behind. I peeked into my side mirror and saw nothing, but when I turned around to look out the back she was still there, eyes wild and forlorn, standing at the intersection and watching us leave.

"What . . . Eden, what was that, just now? Are you all right?"

"Then you didn't see her."

"See who?"

"It doesn't matter. You didn't see her."

Quickly, though gradually, more figures congealed into solid shapes and walked the streets beside us. Women and men, children, even dogs and the occasional rat. Horses and carts and soldiers and seamen. One by one they appeared. A few gave us second, confused glances; but most ignored us or seemed oblivious to our presence. They did not move when my car approached them, they merely parted for us to pass and formed again as though we'd never disturbed them.

I put my face down into my hands. "They're everywhere, Harry."

"Who? Who's everywhere? What are you talking about?"

Shaking my head, rubbing my eyes, I could not answer. "Please just get us to your church." A church, any church, sounded safe. Any refuge at all would suffice.

"We're here now. This is it. I'll park around back."

I didn't raise my eyes until the car had stopped, and then I saw no one but my traveling companion.

The night was too dark for me to see much of the building—as near as I could tell it was the same pale beige-gray stone as many of the city's older structures, but with huge, pointed-arch doors affixed to black hinges. Harry climbed the four or five stairs to the doors and dropped a heavy iron knocker against the wood. His summons thudded deep inside, and with its thick echo came footsteps.

After a series of clacks and booms, one of the giant doors retreated and a small bald man adjusted his thick brown glasses, all the better to squint at us with. "Yes, can I . . . Harold? Is that you?"

"Why so surprised, Marcus? You knew I was on my way."

"No, I'm not surprised. I'm delighted, you old fool—it's only that we weren't expecting you so soon. You made this poor child ride all night then." He beamed us both a giant smile and swung the door back with a flourish. "And you must be Eden." Marcus took my hand and squeezed it, then shook it—also with a flourish. "It's so very nice to meet you, dear."

"Likewise." I tried to return his warmth but I was tired and flustered, and I still felt woozy from that concoction of Tatie's I'd been dumb enough to drink. It was all I could do to stand erect and feign lucidity, even though I'd felt so restless while I was inside the vehicle.

"Oh my," he fretted, "you don't look at all well. Can I make you some tea?"

Tea? Tea was good for what ails you, or so some dim recollection suggested. "Tea. Um, okay. Thank you. Yes, that would be nice."

"Or perhaps something to eat? Would you like something to eat?"

I shook my head. "No, no thank you."

He pressed on, unsatisfied that tea would be greeting enough. "Are you sure? Even something light? I could make you some toast, or open a can of soup? You look so pale. You really should have something. Come on—I'll make you something. Anything you want, and I won't take 'nothing' for an answer."

Harry rolled his eyes but allowed himself a grin. "Marcus, she's exhausted. She said she'd take some tea, and I think she's humoring you at that—now let her be."

"Well then, fine, if that's how it is. Would you prefer to lie down? We've made you up a room, and I hope you'll be comfortable. I've found some things that might be of interest to you both, but we can catch up in the morning if that would be better. There's little enough we can do tonight as it is."

But he'd gotten my interest up, so I reminded him I'd first take some tea before retiring.

"Oh good." He smiled even bigger. "I so much wanted to show you the birth record we found."

"Birth record?"

"Yes, for the little girl. But do come on back to the kitchen and I'll fill you in."

We followed the bouncy man past the sanctuary and down a hall until we reached a set of wooden double doors. "A few of us still reside in the old monk's quarters," Marcus explained. "It's rather like a dormitory back here. I apologize for the state of disrepair, but four-hundred-year-old buildings don't care to be remodeled for plumbing and electricity. We're working on getting it brought up to date right now, but you'll need to be careful. There's scaffolding and tools everywhere you turn. I hate to see it done, really. I honestly feel like we're gutting the place, but the present pipes and electrics were installed in the 1930s, and they're rusting and rotting out the walls. It's the ocean air, I suppose. Wreaks havoc on them. Best thing we can do for the place now is to tear it all out and start fresh."