The Singing Bone (16 page)

“So the tattoo is like the collar?”

Jack nods slowly. “But it goes both ways. I loved Bonnie. I still do. She's long dead, but she still owns me in a way. She claimed me the night she slept on my bed. And I claimed her in the morning when I put a collar on her. Love is eternal.”

“So these tattoos represent love to you?”

“Yes.”

“Did you love Jason Stover?”

“He had a tattoo. Yes.”

“Ah,” Hans says.

“When you put a collar on an animal, you can't just walk up to it the first time you see it and put a collar on it. The animal has to trust you first. It has to know it's your friend. And you approach from the side, not straight on. There has to be a relationship. You should never use sheer force. By the time it happens, it's almost a celebration. It's a shared trust. It's a bond—not servitude. Look—” He rolls the collar of his gray jumpsuit down to expose the skin around his neck. There, like a necklace, is a circle of small black birds—crows—Hans guesses. “They own me, too. Genie's in there, and Molly. Trina. Stover. Allegra. Lee.”

“It's interesting,” Hans says, gazing at the chain of small black birds. “When you first see the tattoo, it resembles barbed wire.”

“Love can be a cage. But we make it one. No one else. I haven't stopped loving any of them.”

“Do you think they still love you?”

“If they stopped, they didn't love.”

Hans gazes at the birds. He can't count the number tattooed there, but they seem to overlap one another. Their wings are tangled. “But there are many more birds there than the people who lived with you on the farm.”

Jack touches his neck. “I've loved a lot of people. They come into my soul and they stay.” He rests his palm on his chest and looks away. He shakes his head and reaches for a new cigarette. He folds the silver foil around the chocolate and moves it aside. “For later,” he says, winking. It's getting dark outside, but the light inside is even and flat.

“Who are the others?”

Jack's irises are as dark as the black birds that chain his neck. Hans brings a match to Jack's cigarette, and the tip flares orange. Jack sits back and blows smoke at the ceiling. He smiles at Hans. His teeth are yellow. He shakes his head.

“You won't tell me?” Hans asks.

“I love no one,” Jack says evasively, “and everyone.” His voice is even softer than Hans's, almost a whisper. The edges of his mouth turn up. Hans extinguishes the match, and the smell of sulfur fills the air. “You know Genie's a professor now. Of folklore,” he says.

“Yes.”

“You know what she's working on?”

“Tell me.”

“She's got two versions of the same ballad, but the endings are different. It's about a murder, but depending on who you talk to, the murderer is either a girl or a man.” Jack looks out the window. He's still humming. “Now how does that go?” he says, scratching his head. Jack's distracted now, working out a song, tapping his fingers lightly on the table.

“Did you say the ballad has two murderers?” Hans asks.

Jack smiles. “Mhmm. Two.” He nods.

“That sounds quite interesting.”

“Doesn't it?” He turns his head, rubs the back of his neck, and sits in profile, humming—a deep, cigarette-scarred baritone. Jack's nose is large and crooked, broken on more than one occasion. Hans imagines an alley fight. A ragged scar runs from his nose to his mouth. For the first time, Hans notices the break in the chain of birds. One flies loose from the necklace, its black wings etched into Jack's skin in midflight.

“One of the birds—” Hans begins, and Jack nods.

“One of the crows is loose.” He coughs out a laugh and turns to Hans. “It's Genie,” he says, touching his neck.

“Why is Alice apart from the others?”

“You know why.” He looks away again, shutting a door.

“Is it because she got away?”

Jack turns and spits on the floor. He rubs his nose with the back of his hand and reaches for another cigarette. “Soon we won't be able to smoke in here,” he says. “Maybe next time you visit. Boy, you'll see me in a fucking pissed-off mood then.”

“Were you there that night?”

“What night?”

“You know what night.”

“February second? Allegra said cross-quarter nights had magical powers. I never knew what the fuck she was talking about half the time, but I guess the animals did.”

“The animals?”

“Genie, Molly, Trina, Stover, Lee.”

“Do you know what happened to the Smiths? Did you know what happened that night?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell them to do it?”

“No.”

“You didn't send them in?”

Jack begins to hum again. “No and no again. I keep telling you.”

Hans can tell Jack is angry, but he pretends he hasn't seen it. “It's commonly understood that you did.”

Jack's humming picks up speed. He holds Hans's gaze, his chin lifted a little. “In one version of Genie's ballad, a young girl kills her own sister, and in another version of the ballad, the miller kills this girl. Sometimes the girl pushes her into the water and then the miller finds her and saves her, and other times, the miller stamps on her fingers and takes her rings and lets her drown. Which one do you think it is?”

“How did you find out what Alice is working on? Have you spoken to her?”

Jack shakes his head. “Not yet, but I will. I can feel her coming. How do you think the story really ends?”

“Does it matter?”

“Doesn't it matter?”

“I mean, if those children hadn't met you, none of this would have happened. Their lives would be completely different.”

“They weren't children.”

“Alice Pearson was only seventeen. The others were eighteen. Lee was a bit older, but not much.”

“Well,” Jack says. “I wasn't there.”

“Say you weren't there. Some people might still see you as guilty.”

“Do you?”

“I am a bystander. I am making a film. I have no right to make a decision about you.” This isn't true. Hans has made many decisions about Jack Wyck, but he won't reveal them. He never tells his subjects what he's thinking while he films. He asks them questions and arranges his point of view later, in the editing room. “But where were you that night?”

“I was in the house with Molly. She was sick.”

“Sick?”

“Asthma. She sounded like this—” Jack clears his throat and closes his eyes. He puts his cigarette down on the table. He puts two fingers at the front of his throat, pressing, and breathes in. He takes his fingers away and nods, then makes a sound, his breath comes short and quick; the ­exhale is shallow, hoarse. When he's finished, he holds his breath. The effect is startling. He opens his eyes and looks at Hans. “Allegra left, and she knew all about Molly's asthma and what you used to treat it. If ­Allegra had been there, none of this would have happened.”

“Where was Allegra?”

Jack raises his hands as if he's casting a spell. “Pow, poof,” he says, opening his fingers wide. “She just disappeared. They never could find her.”

“Didn't she get away, too?”

Jack slowly shakes his head. “I don't think so.”

“Even though she left?”

“I can still feel her.” He touches his chest lightly with his fingers. The world outside is dark. Hans is glad that Ariel is with him. He thinks of the dark road that wends through the Hudson River towns. “Do you know what I did to celebrate the DNA testing?” Jack says.

“What?”

“I had my buddy tattoo a little black box on my chest.” He rolls his shirt up so that Hans can see. The box is crudely done—a flat black square just below
I am that I am
. “Every day I manifest it. I see the lid of the box come off, and I see this long black rope come up out of the box, and I see the bird fly right into it, so it's just tight, just around her neck—”

Hans is staring at Jack. He knows that he's lost his composure. His mouth is slightly open, his palms are sweaty. The hairs on the back of his neck are standing up. He looks at Ariel. She's pale. She looks back at Hans. Jack smiles. “I don't have her yet, but when I do, I will pull that little bird down into the box and I will shut the lid.” His hand hits the table in emphasis. Lenny looks over, and Jack lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. “That bird is inside the box, and she can flap her wings and cry—” His arms, still raised, move like wings. “But she will never be free again.”

It was a summer evening, humid, and all the windows were opened. Alice heard the cars coming up the drive, the crunch of the gravel under the tires. Allegra drew a curtain back and looked out of the kitchen window. “Stover,” she hissed. “Come.” She turned out the lights and lifted the curtain window for him. “Who is that?” she asked.

“I think that's my mom's car,” he said. “And, yeah, that's Molly's parents.” He was excited. “What are they doing here?” His voice rose a little and he laughed.

Allegra motioned with her hand.
Quiet
, she mouthed. “Take Molly and go into the cellar.”

For a moment, Stover stood still, staring at her. “Why?”

“First, because you're stoned,” she said, “and so is Molly. And second, because look at yourself.”

Stover looked down. He was wearing cut-off jeans and nothing else. “All right, I guess. All right,” he said, and went into the living room to fetch Molly. From her perch on the landing, Alice could hear Molly protesting. “Is Stu with them?” she wanted to know. “Why are we hiding?” she asked, and Stover gave Molly the same answers that Allegra had given him. Stover and Molly held hands as they crept down into the basement like two small children, tiptoeing. By the time their parents got to the porch, Molly and Stover were deep in the cellar, tucked away behind stacks of old newspapers, whispering to each other.

Alice could see the Malloys from where she sat, idly twisting a strand of hair on her finger, her bare feet cool against the wooden steps. Allegra answered the door, smiling. “They're out right now,” she said. “They won't be back until late tonight, but we'll tell them you stopped by.” Alice could see someone peering around Allegra, and she squinted to get a better look. It was Stover's dad. Alice rested her head on the banister. “Is that Alice Pearson?” she heard Stover's father say. “Alice!” he yelled. “I just want to talk to Jason.” But Mr. Wyck was above her on the landing. “Psst,” Mr. Wyck whispered at her, and when she looked up, he gestured for her to come. He held her body close to his. “Alice!” she heard Stover's father shout again, and then Molly's mother called out, “Alice, honey, we just want to see you for a minute—make sure you're all right. Don't be scared, baby.” Mr. Wyck held her lightly, stroking her hair. “Shh, little mouse, shh,” he whispered, because Alice was shaking.

After a while, Allegra managed to convince them that they couldn't see their children. “They just aren't here,” she repeated. Mrs. Malloy pushed past Allegra and stood in the living room calling for her daughter, and Alice waited to see if Molly would come out, but she didn't. Allegra turned to Molly's mother and said, “You see? They aren't here.”

“I'd still like to see Alice,” Stover's mother said.

“Yes.” It was Mr. Malloy who called for her next. “Alice?” But Mr. Wyck was leading Alice quietly up the stairs. He took her all the way to the attic and shut the little door behind them. He held her on his lap and buried his face in her hair. “Oh, my mouse,” he murmured. “Oh, my animal.” Alice closed her eyes and let him hold her. She leaned into him. There was some feeling that was too immense to name. She didn't know what it was. It was longing and love and a sense of being lost all at once.

After that night, the police started to drop by randomly, and Mr. Wyck politely lined them up while an officer asked questions: “Do you want to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Can you leave if you want?” When they hesitated, the officer said, “
Well?”

“Yes. Of course we can leave.”

“We don't want to leave.”

The police couldn't do anything. The slow-moving officer had merely come as a favor to Mrs. Malloy, who'd organized a gardening fund-raiser for the purchase of trained canines.

“We need those fucking cops to leave us alone,” Mr. Wyck said. They watched the patrol car pull down the drive. “New plan,” he said. “You two are going to have some new responsibilities here.” He turned to Molly and Stover. “You're going to have to go visit your parents sometimes.” When Molly protested, Mr. Wyck's voice got quiet. “This is your fault,” he said. “So just consider it a favor to all of us.”

And that weekend, Stover and Molly came downstairs, cleaned up, sober, looking for all the world like two bright young high school kids going on a class trip. “Don't talk about me,” Mr. Wyck instructed. “Don't talk about Lee or Allegra. And remember—your parents don't understand that you are capable beings who are inhabiting this world in a new way now. They won't understand anything you try to tell them, so don't try to tell them anything.” Molly and Stover got in the car with Lee, who would drop them off at their parents' houses and pick them up later.

  •  •  •  

One day, Alice and Trina were sitting in front of the fire together, sharing a joint. Stover was listening to records with Lee and Mr. Wyck, and Molly and Allegra had gone to the store for wine. Trina was working Alice's hair into two tight French braids. “What's going on with Mr. Wyck and Allegra?” Alice asked. Allegra never looked into Alice's room anymore at night.

Trina shrugged. “Allegra's a bitch. That's what's going on with Mr. Wyck and Allegra.”