Night Songs (9 page)

    He pushed the papers aside and sat, ignoring the flickering from the portable television on the desk. His head shook in dismay. All night he'd been trying to capture the sand castle, and every one of his efforts was a dismal, amateurish failure.

    "Nuts, goddamn," he said, and swept the papers to the floor. It was something he hadn't learned yet that was keeping him from doing it right, something he would have to ask Colin about the next time he came to class.

    He stretched out, cupped his hands beneath his head, and wondered, not for the first time, if there was something wrong with him inside. Colin had said no, and so had his mother, but if that were true why wasn't his room like anyone else's? There were no pennants on the walls, no cowboy guns in the closet, no footballs or baseballs or an outfielder's mitt. Tommy Fox even had pictures of naked women hidden under his mattress, and he was Matt's age.

    But nobody, not anybody put the pictures they drew in school on display in their rooms.

    And they definitely hated going to museums-except of course, for the one in New York that had all the dinosaur bones in it, and the stuffed elephants and lions.

    No matter what his mother said, he knew he was different. He had to be. And he hated it, hated it a lot. Like when Gran had shown him how to carve things with a knife; he'd done it, done okay for someone who didn't know what he was doing, and it was neat to see how Gran smiled at him in a way he knew no one else got-except maybe Lilla. But the other kids thought it was silly, making things from dead wood. Hated it, like today when the other guys kept poking fun at him while they were building the castle. He didn't say anything to Mr. Ross, but they'd been doing it all afternoon, and even though he was nearly ten he'd almost cried-until Mr. Ross came along and made everything okay.

    He remembered the day this past summer that he had told Mr. Ross about, the day with Gran at the luncheonette. There was something funny about the old man's breath that made his nose wrinkle, but Gran was telling him how he used to be a great prince in the island country he came from, and how he bossed everyone around and no one dared laugh at him for being different.

    "Good times," Gran had said, picking at his nails with the point of his knife. "They the good days, when I was a young man and had all my teeth." He laughed and slapped his knee. "I tell you, boy, you go with me when I go back and we be king together."

    Matt's eyes had nearly popped he opened them so wide. "Yeah? Really?"

    Gran had smiled, the true smile he saved for Matt and Lilla. "Oh yes, boy, you believe old Gran when he tell you this is true. Some people here, they don't believe old Gran, but they don't know anything, not these people. They don't know nothing at all what it is like when you be king."

    "A bunch of sunburned people in shorts had walked by then, had looked at them, and Matt had heard one of them say "nigger."

    Gran heard it too. The knife was jabbed deep into the bench.

    "They're stupid, Gran," he'd said quickly, wanting to chase them and give them a karate chop, just like James Bond.

    But Gran had put a hard hand on his leg to hold him down, and it was a long time before he spoke again.

    "Stupid, yes. But they"-and he waved a hand to include the whole island-" hurt
you
too. I know. They got no imagination, but I know what you got in here." A bony finger thumped the side of his head, keeping Matt from asking
how
he knew when no one else did. "We be kings together, okay? Okay?"

    Matt agreed readily, and they laughed together. He'd wished he really were a king so he could do something about people who hurt other people. For real, not like in the movies. He wasn't sure, but he thought he'd even kill someone before they could hurt his mother and his teacher, maybe even before they could hurt Lilla. He wasn't sure. But he thought so. If
he were a king like Gran said he could be.

    But Gran had turned strange, would talk to no one but Lilla, and he guessed the old man was crazy after all.

    He shivered and looked over to the window, and wrinkled his nose when he saw the bottom sash still raised. Too cold for that, for sure. On the other hand, if he closed it he wouldn't hear Lilla's singing-if, that is, she sang again tonight. It had been going on for almost a week, and though it spooked his mother, he kind of liked it. One night it would sound like it was coming from the cliffs, and the next it would be coming from the woods on the north shore by Fox's Marina. The night wind took it all over the place. It was sad and it was fast and sometimes it was so lonely sounding he couldn't stand it and wanted to crawl into bed with his mother. She wouldn't let him, though. So he had to stay by the window and look at the backyard and wait until Lilla was happy again.

    Pretty, sometimes, in a way he didn't quite understand, but also very spooky. Yes, he supposed it really was about as spooky as you could get.

    Especially when it sounded as if he were listening to Gran telling him what it would be like to be king.

    But Gran was dead, and now there were only two who didn't think it was so awful and terrible to be different from the rest.

    Two, because you didn't count Lilla; ever since Gran died she was too spooky.

    Suddenly he didn't want to hear the singing anymore, so he hurried to the window and slammed the sash down, took off his clothes and squirmed under the sheet and quilt. He got up again with a groan and turned off the TV and the lamp, then listened at the door to see if he could hear his mother moving around down there. It was silent and he got into bed.

    When his eyes closed he saw a bundle of gray being dropped into the water. Gran. Gran was being buried right while he lay there. Stuck under the water where all the fish could get at him. And Matt couldn't decide which was worse: being eaten by fish or being eaten by worms. Some fish had teeth, but worms made holes; fish took little bites, but worms made holes; some fish could take you in two or three gulps, but worms…

    He sat upright, blinked, fumbled for the lamp and squinted away from the light as he checked his hands and arms. No holes. He wasn't dead. And he decided right then that he wouldn't die at all. That way, neither the fish nor the worms would be able to get him.

    He relaxed and checked the window; unease returned, and he lay back, pulling the quilt to his chin and turning his face to the door.

    There was fog out there.

    Vaguely illuminated by the light from the kitchen below, it masked the woods and ran rivulets down the pane, pulsed in the breeze as though it were breathing. That was all Lilla's fault. He didn't think anyone had noticed, but he had: All the time Lilla had been singing those dumb, spooky songs, there'd been no fog at all. But tonight, when she was quiet, out there putting old Gran into the ocean for all the fish to eat him, the fog had come back. As if she'd been calling it, and it had taken all this time to get here.

    Nuts, he thought. Goddamn… goddamn.

    

    

    In the raised saltbox house on Atlantic Terrace, three in from Bridge Road, Peg Fletcher saw a car drift grayly past the window and knew the funeral was over. She closed her book and went to the front door, opened it, and couldn't believe what she was hearing-

    Lilla singing.

    Matt Fletcher tossed and turned in his sleep, fat red worms slithering through his dreams, huge black fish swimming through his nightmares, all of them driven-

    By Lilla singing.

    Colin accepted a ride back from Garve, got out at the police station and nearly broke into a run in his hurry to get home. Lilla had refused to go to the house two doors down from Peg's, and demanded she be permitted to stay at Gran's shack for one more night. He hadn't argued, no one had. Now all he wanted was to get in bed in order to hurry the dawn.

    The wind was strong, and he could feel the spider-touch of mist that preceded the rain. Not the Screamer, Garve had assured him, just a quick storm, nothing more. With shoulders hunched and head down, he began a slow trot, and before he reached the cottage he remembered his promise to call Peg. He smiled ruefully. It would have been nicer to go directly to her place, but he didn't think he'd be good company tonight.

    Then he stopped, half turned, and listened.

    The wind, he told himself hastily as he hurried up the steps and fumbled for his key; it's only the wind. Gran is dead. She's there in his damned shack.

    But as the door swung inward he realized he was listening to Lilla's distant singing.

    

    

    Within an hour after the funeral a wind broke from the mainland forest as if it had been lurking there, waiting for its moment. It rocked the ferry at its mooring and sent Wally into the small hut to the left of the landing. He would have opened the single window overlooking the bay, but there was something about the trees' sighing he didn't like-a subliminal wailing, and a distant acrid odor he usually associated with an abnormally low tide, with dead fish and mudflats and the fresh rot of
things
dredged up from the bottom.

    He stoked the wood stove, shrugged into his worn pea coat, and sat in the chipped Boston rocker in the corner. There was a cot and a blanket beside him, but he made no move to lie down, the temptation of sleep long banished by his nerves. Instead, after lighting a bitter pipe he hadn't cleaned in weeks, he flipped through worn magazines whose words blurred before his one good eye, whose photographs of nude women smeared as if the eye were weeping.

    The wind skimmed over the water, raising white-caps in its wake, coasting over the island and shredding the fog. There were thick night clouds looming overhead, blotting out the stars. The tidal swells hunched and the breakers grew more insistent, slamming into the jetties to form walls of brief gray. The caves that pocked the cliffs added deep-throated howls to the keening overhead.

    The boats at the marina scraped against their docks; branches scraped against windows; the amber light on Neptune Avenue flared once, and went out.

    

    

    The ocean was cold, nearly as cold as it was dark, and Lilla felt her flesh tightening as if she had been suddenly encased in stiff, cracking leather. She was naked, and she had begun to wish she had worn something to warm her, but there had been very little time to pick and choose among her wardrobe-most of it she kept in the house on Atlantic Terrace, and the few pieces left were in a trunk in the shack.

    Besides, she thought, the clothes would be a hindrance, and right now she needed all the freedom she could get.

    After Colin had reluctantly left her at the door, clearly not believing her assertion she was fine; after Reverend Otter had paid his condolences and commented on the service; after Garve and the others had drifted silently off the beach, she had sat on the floor, cross-legged and waiting. Patiently at first, until the wind began to blow; then fidgeting, drumming her fingers hard on her thighs, rocking on her buttocks, humming to herself until she thought it was midnight.

    
Hang on, Gran. Hang on, hang on.

    She sat, humming and rocking, and every few moments blinking her eyes slowly as if vaguely aware of a distant beckoning light just below the horizon. A light that stirred memories, a light that had her frightened.

    Once she shook her head violently and leapt to her feet. She stared about her in helpless panic. This is wrong, she thought (the light flaring for a moment). This was all wrong and she was condemning herself to the worst kind of hell if she… if she… (the light flickered)… if… (the light died)… she sighed, closed her eyes, a spectral smile on her lips. A smile that lasted until she opened the shack's door.

    
Hang on, Gran, I'll be singing you soon. Hang on, hang on, don't leave me, don't leave.

    She stumbled down off the flat and raced up the beach, vaulting the snow fence as if it were only a foot high-, landing lightly on hands and knees in a dark spray of sand. A scramble for balance, and she was running again. No attention was paid to the wind now, or to the waves that hissed angrily toward the woods. She was dimly aware the moon and stars were gone, and just as dimly heard the distant blare of a car's horn.

    The beach narrowed, became rocky, and the trees stalked the waterline. She slowed and moved into the shadows, picking her way cautiously through dank shallow pools and across long stretches of mossy rocks, dead leaves, and sodden needle carpets. Her hands shoved aside branches, her face ducked away from sharp twigs, and she felt nothing at all when a wide thicket she plunged through tore gaps in her dress. Her hair matted and snarled. Cracks spread across the heels and soles of her bare feet. And finally she bent forward into a partial crouch and slipped past stiff shrubs to the edge of the manna's reach.

    To her left, on the other side of a crushed-gravel driveway, was a sturdy, three-story white house topped by a widow's walk and girdled by a closed-in porch. A station wagon and red jeep were parked in its shadow. A wide, well-kept lawn spread down to the water, illuminated in silver by spotlights bolted to tall poles at the end of each dock. All the boats, including the trawler, were there rocking against the nudging of the wind, dull thumps soft in the night air as used-tire buffers caught the hulls and eased them back.

    On this side of the drive, in line with her left shoulder, was a huge, gray, barn-like structure that served as Alex Fox's workhouse, starkly outlined by glaring lights in the eaves.

    She waited, squatting on her heels.

    Then, on command of a timer Fox kept in his kitchen, the lights snapped out, one by one in rapid sequence, the black vacuum filled by a photo negative afterimage that blinded her for several moments. Once her vision cleared, however, she was out of the trees and running, hitting the nearest dock as quietly as she could and darting out to the end. A rowboat moored at bow and stern rose and fell with the rising wind.