“Hello, John Narraway.”
He turned to find her standing beside him, her own solemn gaze drinking in the light that pulsed in the big sky between the gates and flowed over them. She smiled at him.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said. “And certainly not in this place. You did well to find it.”
“I had help. One of your colleagues showed me the way.”
“There’s nothing wrong with accepting help sometimes.”
“I know that now,” John said. “I also understand how hard it is to offer help and have it refused.”
Dakota stepped closer and drew the infant from the sling at John’s chest.
“It is hard,” she agreed, cradling Dolly. Her eyes still held the reflected light that came from between the gates, but they were sad once more as she studied the weeping infant. She sighed, adding, “But it’s not something that can be forced.”
John nodded. There was something about Dakota’s voice, about the way she looked that distracted him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
“I will take care of the little one,” Dakota said. “There’s no need for you to remain here.”
“What will you do with her?”
“Whatever she wants.”
“But she’s so young.”
The sadness deepened in Dakota’s eyes. “I know.”
There was so much empathy in her voice, in the way she held the infant, in her gaze. And then John realized what was different about her. Her voice wasn’t hollow, it held resonance. She wasn’t monochrome, but touched with color. There was only a hint, at first, like an old tinted photograph, but it was like looking at a rainbow for John. As it grew stronger he drank in the wonder of it. He wished she would speak again, just so that he could cherish the texture of her voice, but she remained silent, solemn gaze held by the infant in her arms.
“I find it hardest when they’re so young,” she finally said, looking up at him. “They don’t communicate in words so it’s impossible to ease their fears.”
But words weren’t the only way to communicate, John thought. He crouched down to lay his fiddlecase on the ground, took out his bow and tightened the hair. He ran his thumb across the fiddle strings to check the tuning, marveling anew at the richness of sound. He thought perhaps he’d missed that the most.
“What are you doing?” Dakota asked him.
John shook his head. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to explain it to her, but that he couldn’t. Instead he slipped the fiddle under his chin, drew the bow across the strings, and used music to express what words couldn’t. He turned to the gates, drank in the light and the immense wonder of the sky and distilled it into a simple melody, an air of grace and beauty. Warm generous notes spilled from the sound holes of his instrument, grew stronger and more resonant in the light of the gates, gained such presence that they could almost be seen, touched and held with more than the ear.
The infant in Dakota’s arms fell silent and listened. She turned innocent eyes toward the gates and reached out for them. John slowly brought the melody to an end. He laid down his fiddle and bow and took the infant from Dakota, walked with her toward the light. When he was directly under the arch, the light seemed to flare and suddenly the weight was gone from his arms. He heard a joyous cry, but could see nothing for the light. His felt a beating in his chest as though he was alive once more, pulse drumming. He wanted to follow Dolly into the light more than he’d ever wanted anything before in his life, but he slowly turned his back on the light and stepped back onto the boulevard.
“John Narraway,” Dakota said. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t go through,” he said. “Not yet. I have to help the others—like you do.”
“But—”
“It’s not because I don’t want to go through anymore,” John said. “It’s . . .”
He didn’t know how to explain it and not even fiddle music would help him now. All he could think of was the despair that had clung to him in the city of the undead, the same despair that possessed all those lost souls he’d left there, wandering forever through its deserted streets, huddling in its abandoned buildings, denying themselves the light. He knew that, like Dakota and Gair, he had to try to prevent others from making the same mistake. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, he knew there would be times when it would be heartbreaking, but he could see no other course.
“I just want to help,” he said. “I have to help. You told me before that there aren’t enough of you and the fellow that brought me here said the same thing.”
Dakota gave him a long considering look before she finally smiled. “You know,” she said. “I think you do have the generosity of heart now.”
John put away his fiddle. When he stood up, Dakota took his hand and they began to walk back down the boulevard, away from the gates.
“I’m going to miss that light,” John said.
Dakota squeezed his hand. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “The light has always been inside us.”
John glanced back. From this distance, the light was like a heat mirage again, shimmering between the pillars of the gates, but he could still feel its glow, see the flare of its wonder and the sky beyond it that went on forever. Something of it echoed in his chest and he knew Dakota was right.
“We carry it with us wherever we go,” he said.
“Learn to play that on your fiddle, John Narraway,” she said.
John returned her smile. “I will,” he promised. “I surely will.”
Birds
Isn’t it wonderful? The world scans.
—Nancy Willard, from “Looking for Mr. Ames”
1
When her head is full of birds, anything is possible. She can understand the slow language of the trees, the song of running water, the whispering gossip of the wind. The conversation of the birds fills her until she doesn’t even think to remember what it was like before she could understand them. But sooner or later, the birds go away, one by one, find new nests, new places to fly. It’s not that they tire of her; it’s simply not in their nature to tarry for too long.
But she misses them. Misses their company, the flutter of wings inside her head and their trilling conversations. Misses the possibilities. The magic.
To call them back she has to approach them as a bride. Dressed in white, with something old and something new, something borrowed and something blue. And a word. A new word, from another’s dream. A word that has never been heard before.
2
Katja Faro was out later than she thought safe, at least for this part of town and at this time of night, the minute hand of her old-fashioned wristwatch steadily climbing up the last quarter of her watch face to count the hour. Three A.M. That late.
From early evening until the clubs close, Gracie Street is a jumbled clutter of people, looking for action, looking for gratification, or just out and about, hanging, gossiping with their friends. There’s always something happening, from Lee Street all the way across to Williamson, but tag on a few more hours and clubland becomes a frontier. The lights advertising the various cafés, clubs, and bars begin to flicker and go out, their patrons and staff have all gone home, and the only people out on the streets are a few stragglers, such as Katja tonight, and the predators.
Purple combat boots scuffing on the pavement, Katja felt adrift on the empty street. It seemed like only moments ago she’d been secure in the middle of good conversation, laughter and espressos; then someone remarked on the time, the café was closing and suddenly she was out here, on the street, by herself, finding her own way home. She held her jean jacket closed at her throat—the buttons had come off, one by one, and she kept forgetting to replace them—and listened to the swish of her long flowered skirt, the sound of her boots on the pavement. Listened as well for other footsteps and prayed for a cab to come by.
She was paying so much attention to what might be lurking behind the shadowed mouths of the alleyways that she almost didn’t notice the slight figure c
urled up in the doorway of the pawnshop on her right. The sight made her pause. She glanced up and down the street before crouching down in the doorway. The figure’s features were in shadow, the small body outlined under what looked like a dirty white sheet, or a shawl. By its shape Katja could tell it wasn’t a boy.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asked.
When there was no response, she touched the girl’s shoulder and repeated her question. Large pale eyes flickered open, their gaze settling on Katja. The girl woke like a cat, immediately aware of everything around her. Her black hair hung about her face in a tangle. Unlike most street people, she had a sweet smell, like a field of clover, or a potpourri of dried rosehips and herbs, gathered in a glass bowl.
“What makes you think I’m not okay?” the girl asked.
Katja pushed the fall of her own dark hair back from her brow and settled back on her heels.
“Well, for one thing,” she said, “you’re lying here in a doorway, on a bed of what looks like old newspapers. It’s not exactly the kind of place people pick to sleep in if they’ve got a choice.”
She glanced up and down the street again as she spoke, still wary of her surroundings and their possible danger, still hoping to see a cab.
“I’m okay,” the girl told her.
“Yeah, right.”
“No, really.”
Katja had to smile. She wasn’t so old that she’d forgotten what it felt like to be in her late teens and immortal. Remembering, looking at this slight girl with her dark hair and strangely pale eyes, she got this odd urge to take in a stray the way that Angel and Jilly often did. She wasn’t sure why. She liked to think that she had as much sympathy as the next person, but normally it was hard to muster much of it at this time of night. Normally she was thinking too much about what terrors the night might hold for her to consider playing the Good Samaritan. But this girl looked so young. . . .
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Teresa. Teresa Lewis.”
Katja offered her hand as she introduced herself.
Teresa laughed. “Welcome to my home,” she said and shook Katja’s hand.
“This a regular squat?” Katja asked. Nervous as she was at being out so late, she couldn’t imagine actually sleeping in a place like this on a regular basis.
“No,” Teresa said. “I meant the street.”
Katja sighed. Immortal. “Look. I don’t have that big a place, but there’s room on my couch if you want to crash.”
Teresa gave her a considering look.
“Well, I know it’s not the Harbor Ritz,” Katja began.
“It’s not that,” Teresa told her. “It’s just that you don’t know me at all. I could be loco, for all you know. Get to your place and rob you . . . .”
“I’ve got a big family,” Katja told her. “They’d track you down and take it out of your skin.”
Teresa laughed again. It was like they were meeting at a party somewhere, Katja thought, drinks in hand, no worries, instead of on Gracie Street at three A.M.
“I’m serious,” she said. “I’ve got the room.”
Teresa’s laughter trailed off. Her pale gaze settled on Katja’s features.
“Do you believe in magic?” she asked.
“Say what?”
“Magic. Do you believe in it?”
Katja blinked. She waited for the punch line, but when it didn’t come, she said, “Well, I’m not sure. My friend Jilly sure does—though maybe magic’s not quite the right word. It’s more like she believes there’s more to this world than we can always see or understand. She sees things. . . .”
Katja caught herself. How did we get into this? she thought. She wanted to change the subject, she wanted to get off the street before some homeboys showed up with all the wrong ideas in mind, but the steady weight of Teresa’s intense gaze wouldn’t let her go.
“Anyway,” Katja said, “I guess you could say Jilly does. Believes in magic, I mean. Sees things.”
“But what about you? Have you seen things?”
Katja shook her head. “Only ‘old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago,’ ” she said. “Wordsworth,” she added, placing the quote when Teresa raised her eyebrows in a question.
“Then I guess you couldn’t understand,” Teresa told her. “See, the reason I’m out here like this is that I’m looking for a word.”
3
I can’t sleep. I lie in bed for what feels like hours, staring up at the shadows cast on the ceiling from the streetlight outside my bedroom window. Finally I get up. I pull on a pair of leggings and a T-shirt and pad quietly across the room in my bare feet. I stand in the doorway and look at my guest. She’s still sleeping, all curled up again, except her nest is made up of a spare set of my sheets and blankets now instead of old newspapers.
I wish it wasn’t so early. I wish I could pick up the phone and talk to Jilly. I want to know if the strays she brings home tell stories as strange as mine told me on the way back to my apartment. I want to know if her strays can recognize the egret which is a deposed king. If they can understand the gossip of bees and what crows talk about when they gather in a murder. If they ever don the old-woman wisdom to be found in the rattle-and-cough cry of a lonesome gull and wear it like a cloak of story.
I want to know if Jilly’s ever heard of bird-brides, because Teresa says that’s what she is, what she usually is, until the birds fly away. To gather them back into her head takes a kind of a wedding ritual that’s sealed with a dream-word. That’s what she was doing out on Gracie Street when I found her: worn out from trying to get strangers to tell her a word that they’d only ever heard before in one of their dreams.
I don’t have to tell you how helpful the people she met were. The ones that didn’t ignore her or call her names just gave her spare change instead of the word she needs. But I can’t say as I blame them. If she’d come up to me with her spiel I don’t know how I’d have reacted. Not well, probably. Wouldn’t have listened. Gets so you can’t walk down a block some days without getting hit up for change, five or six times. I don’t want to be cold; but when it comes down to it, I’ve only got so much myself.
I look away from my guest, my gaze resting on the phone for a moment, before I turn around and go back into my room. I don’t bother undressing. I just lie there on my bed, looking up at the shadow play that’s still being staged on my ceiling. I know what’s keeping me awake: I can’t decide if I’ve brought home some poor confused kid or a piece of magic. It’s not the one or the other that’s brought on my insomnia. It’s that I’m seriously considering the fact that it might be one or the other.
4
“No, I have a place to live,” Teresa said the next morning. They were sitting at the narrow table in Katja’s kitchen that only barely seated the two of them comfortably, hands warming around mugs of freshly brewed coffee. “I live in a bachelor in an old house on Stanton Street.”
Katja shook her head. “Then why were you sleeping in a doorway last night?”
“I don’t know. I think because the people on Gracie Street in the evening seem to dream harder than people anywhere else.”
“They’re just more desperate to have a good time,” Katja said.
“I suppose. Anyway, I was sure I’d find my word there and by the time I realized I wouldn’t—at least last night—it was so late and I was just too tired to go home.”
“But weren’t you scared?”
Teresa regarded her with genuine surprise. “Of what?”
How to explain, Katja wondered. Obviously this girl sitting across from her in a borrowed T-shirt, with sleep still gathered in the corners of her eyes, was fearless, like Jilly. Where did you start enumerating the dangers for them? And why bother? Teresa probably wouldn’t listen any more than Jilly ever did. Katja thought sometimes that people like them must have guardian angels watching out for them—and working overtime.
“I feel like I’m always scared,” she said.
Ter
esa nodded. “I guess that’s the way I feel, when the birds leave and all I have left in my head are empty nests and a few stray feathers. Kind of lonely, and scared that they’ll never come back.”
That wasn’t the way Katja felt at all. Her fear lay in the headlines of newspapers and the sound-bites that helped fill newscasts. There was too much evil running loose—random, petty evil, it was true, but evil all the same. Ever-present and all around her so that you didn’t know who to trust anymore. Sometimes it seemed as though everyone in the world was so much bigger and more capable than her. Too often, confronted with their confidence, she could only feel helpless.
“Where did you hear about this . . . this thing with the birds?” she said instead. “The way you can bring them back?”
Teresa shrugged. “I just always knew it.”
“But you have all these details. . . .”
Borrowed from bridal folklore, Katja added to herself—all except for the word she had to get from somebody else’s dream. The question she’d really wanted to ask was, why those particular details? What made their borrowed possibilities true? Katja didn’t want to sound judgmental. The truth, she had to admit if she was honest with herself, wasn’t so much that she believed her houseguest as that she didn’t disbelieve her. Hadn’t she woken up this morning searching the fading remnants of her dreams, looking for a new word that only existed beyond the gates of her sleeping mind?
Teresa was smiling at her. The wattage behind the expression seemed to light the room, banishing shadows and uncertainties, and Katja basked in its glow.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Teresa said. “They don’t even sound all that original except for the missing word, do they? But I believe any of us can make things happen—even magical, impossible things. It’s a matter of having faith in the private rituals we make up for ourselves.”
“Rituals you make up . . . ?”
“Uh-huh. The rituals themselves aren’t all that important on their own—though once you’ve decided on them, you have to stick to them, just like the old alchemists did. You have to follow them through.”