“But what’s a little raw chicken on such a happy occasion?” I saw Mom down at the other end roll her eyes and groan. Marissa squeezed Doug’s hand. Her expression was tense.
“I want to toast a beautiful bride,” Kenny said, shoving his raised glass toward Marissa. “Of course, I’ve known Marissa since she was born and, believe me, she wasn’t always this pretty. Face facts. You were an ugly baby, Marissa. You looked a lot like Yoda—you know—from the Star Wars movies, except maybe not as cute.”
Kenny’s grin grew wider. He thought he was being hilarious. Didn’t he notice no one was laughing?
“And now look what you’ve turned out to be,” he continued. “So beautiful and so graceful and artistic. I mean, really.”
He lowered his glass. “Marissa, do you remember the first time you were onstage? What were you—first grade? Kindergarten, maybe. That Easter show at your school. And when you went out there, you were so scared, you peed on the stage? Remember? They had to stop the show and mop it up?”
A few people laughed uncomfortable laughter. Marissa tried to push a smile on her face, but she couldn’t hide her embarrassment. Doug laughed and shook his head.
I could feel the tension around the table. I shut my eyes and prayed, Please make him stop. Please let this be over.
But Kenny droned on. “I’m just pushing your buttons, Marissa. It’s all said with love, believe me. Of course, I’ve got some other good stories to share with Doug. But this isn’t the time. I just want to say—unnnnnh—”
I still had my eyes closed, muttering to myself. But I snapped alert when Uncle Kenny started to choke.
He coughed a bit, a hoarse cough. Then his eyes bulged and his face turned bright red, and he made horrible choking sounds. The wineglass fell out of his hand and crashed onto his dinner plate, and wine ran over the table.
I jumped to my feet and watched as Kenny, choking, reached into his mouth. His fingers fumbled inside his mouth. We all gasped when he pulled out a large gray feather.
It was like a pigeon feather, only maybe a little bigger. Kenny held it in front of him. His hand was shaking. He squinted at it in disbelief.
“The chicken really was undercooked!” Grandpa Bud joked.
Kenny thought the danger was over. But he started to gag again. He was wheezing and choking. He reached into his mouth, and another long feather slid out.
“Uh . . . I . . .” He tried to talk. But he started to choke again. The two feathers had fallen onto his wine-soaked dinner plate. And now he pulled a third one, an even longer feather, from his open mouth.
People jumped to their feet. Mom buried her head in her hands. Dad was hurrying toward our end of the table. “We need a doctor,” he shouted. “Someone call 911!”
Doug pulled out his phone and started to call. Marissa had turned her back. She hates anything ugly or scary.
Kenny slid another feather from his mouth. Then, his shoulders heaving, his face as purple as a plum, he pulled out two more.
“What is going on?”
“How is this happening?”
“Is it some kind of trick? Is this one of his awful jokes?”
“It’s impossible. I’m sick. He’s making me sick.”
The roar of voices rang off the low rafters. Everyone was up from the table now. Max was standing on his chair, staring at his father and bawling his head off, big tears running down his cheeks.
“911 isn’t answering!” Doug shouted over the confused, horrified voices. “It just keeps ringing.”
Dad and I helped Kenny down to the floor. Kenny pulled out another handful of feathers. His hands were shaking and he was making horrible gagging sounds.
We rested him sitting up against the wall. He gazed up at us, kind of glassy-eyed, like he was in shock. There were long gray feathers everywhere. Piled on the table, scattered on the floor. Kenny groaned and made raw animal noises. He was breathing so hard, his chest heaved up and down.
And then the horrible throat sounds stopped. Kenny slumped forward, shut his eyes, and didn’t move.
“Kenny? Kenny?” Dad grabbed him and shook him. “Kenny?”
Holding on to Kenny, Dad turned to me, his face wide with horror. “I think he’s dead.”
Fifteen
No one moved. A tense hush fell over the room. Mom had picked up Max and was comforting him. Grandpa Bud came up and stood beside me. He placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Kenny?” Dad’s voice trembled.
Kenny made a noise like glurrrrrp, and he threw up all down the front of his shirt. I heard groans and sighs of relief around the room. It was disgusting, but at least Kenny was alive. And the feathers had finally stopped coming.
I grabbed a couple of dinner napkins off the table and handed them to my uncle to clean himself up. Kenny looked dazed. He kept blinking and shaking his head.
“Kenny, should we get a doctor?” Dad said. “Are you okay? Can you talk?”
Kenny rubbed his neck. “I have such a sore throat,” he whispered.
“We’ll get you to your room,” Dad said, starting to pull him to his feet.
“Did that really happen?” Kenny whispered.
“See? Your dad is just fine,” Mom said. She had brought Max over to see that all was returning to normal.
“Did Dad eat a bird?” Max demanded.
We all laughed, more from relief than anything else.
Max wasn’t making a joke. The poor kid was just totally confused. And who wasn’t? Who could explain what we just saw?
Around the room, people muttered and shook their heads. What we had just seen was impossible.
“This place is cursed,” Dad whispered to me. He wasn’t just upset. He was angry. “I begged your sister to have her wedding at home. This lodge is a cursed, terrible place. That’s why the family sold it.”
“Shhh.” Grandpa Bud poked Dad in the side. “Shut up, David. We don’t have to talk about it. Everyone knows what happened here.”
“I don’t know about it,” I said, grabbing Bud’s sleeve. “Tell me.”
Before he could answer, a woman’s voice rang out over all the confusion. “Sorry I’m late, people!” I turned. It was Rita Gonzalez, the wedding planner my parents had hired. Talk about bad timing. “Is everyone having a good time?” she chirped. “Are you all ready for the rehearsal?”
Well, we took half an hour to get ourselves together. Dad said Kenny was resting okay in his room. I went back to my room and decided to change. I had the smell of vomit on me. And I kept picturing those huge feathers Uncle Kenny kept pulling from his mouth.
Why was I chuckling?
I could hear my brother, Robby, through the wall. He was in the next room, and of course, he was on the phone with Nikki. I heard him telling her about Kenny and the feathers. She probably thought he was making it up.
They started having some kind of argument. They always argue about everything. I think that’s conversation to them. Robby kept saying, “Deal with it. Deal with it.” I clicked on the TV on the wall to drown them out.
The evening sky was a purple gray as we all made our way up the path to the mesa. A white altar stood near the cliff top, and it glowed in the light of a pale half-moon.
Grandpa Bud took my arm and I helped him walk up the sloping hill. “Have you seen Max?” I asked him. “Is he back in the room with his dad?”
“They put Max to bed,” Bud said, squeezing my arm. His hand felt brittle and cold. “It was his bedtime, I guess. But also he was very upset about Kenny.”
“Understandable,” I said, watching Marissa and Doug step under the arch over the altar. Rita Gonzalez had her clipboard raised and was reading off something to the bride and groom, who I could see from all the way back here were only half paying attention. They were holding hands and gazing down at the canyon below.
Grandpa Bud squinted at me. “You were upset?”
“Of course.” I could feel my face go hot. Why was he studying me like that?
He stop
ped walking but didn’t loosen his grip on my arm. “Harmony, do you really not know what happened on this spot?”
I hesitated. “Well . . . I read about it a little bit.”
He nodded but didn’t reply. We started walking again.
“The groom and the best man will stand here,” Ms. Gonzalez was saying. “They will lead the wedding march. The parents will follow and . . .” She gazed around. “Where’s the best man?”
I saw Harry Marx stumble on the grass and struggle to stay on his feet. It was obvious that he’d had too much wine at the rehearsal dinner. Harry wore ragged shorts that came down almost to his knees and a T-shirt that read: I’m just here for the food.
His lips were moving. He was singing to himself. He stepped up to the edge of the cliff and began flapping his arms above his head, pretending to fall.
“Not funny, Harry!” Marissa shouted.
“You’re acting like a five-year-old,” I told him. “Max already tried that!”
“Come over here so we can get this over with,” Doug said.
I saw Rita Gonzalez flinch. “Please be careful,” she said. “I think we all want it to be perfect tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” Doug muttered. But he didn’t smile or try to charm her or anything.
Tomorrow is their wedding day, I thought. Why aren’t they more into it?
Harry stumbled his way up behind Doug. He grabbed Doug by the shoulders and tried to wrestle him to the ground.
Marissa shook her head. “Come on, guys. You really are acting like five-year-olds.”
“No. Six-year-olds,” Harry said. He rubbed the top of his head with a fist and made monkey sounds.
Ms. Gonzalez moved him a few steps to the right. “You’ll walk up the aisle, taking slow steps to the music, and you’ll land right here. Okay?”
Harry touched his forehead in a two-fingered salute.
Meanwhile, Doug had pulled Marissa away from the altar, and they seemed to be having some kind of argument. They were both talking at once, but quietly so they couldn’t be overheard. Marissa kept shoving Doug’s chest with an open hand.
Mom came up beside me, her eyes on the arguing couple.
“What’s up with them?” I asked.
She brought her face close to mine and whispered, “Wedding jitters. Happens to everyone.”
“Seriously? Shouldn’t they be all over each other?”
Mom laughed. “Why don’t you tell them that?”
“Parents? Where are the parents?” Ms. Gonzalez called, motioning with her clipboard.
Mom hurried away. Dad was helping Grandpa Bud into a chair.
I gazed around at the rest of the wedding party. Everyone was quiet, grim-faced, solemn. It didn’t seem like a celebration.
I guessed that the bird feathers pouring out of Kenny’s mouth had totally freaked out everyone.
Doug’s parents were cute. They were older than my folks and looked more like grandparents than parents. They both had matching short white hair and round, jolly faces.
Chubby. Not obese, but you know. Their stomachs bounced a little when they walked. Their hands were doughy like cartoon hands and their fingers were kind of like sausages.
I’m not trying to be cruel. I liked them. They were sweet.
They were the only ones who dressed up for the rehearsal, so they definitely looked like they were from a different family.
The four parents gathered around Ms. Gonzalez, who began pointing to where they should go after walking up the aisle. I saw Robby at the back of the rows of folding chairs. He actually lowered his phone from his ear. Maybe Nikki had to take a bathroom break.
I walked over to him, my hands tucked in my jeans pockets. “How’s it going?”
He shrugged. “Okay, I guess. I keep clearing my throat, thinking I have a feather in there.”
I laughed.
“I’m serious,” he said. “It happened to Uncle Kenny. It could happen to anyone. My throat has been tickling ever since.”
“I feel weird, too,” I confessed.
“How do you mean?”
“My stomach is, like, heavy. I just have this feeling. Like something bad is going to happen.”
“Harmony, something bad already happened,” Robby said.
“No. I mean. Worse,” I said. “You know what happened on this spot before, right? At another wedding that our family had here?”
“No. What happened? Someone died?”
“Well . . . yeah,” I said, surprised that he didn’t know the story. “Didn’t you read that old book about our family?”
“I skimmed it.”
“Huh?”
“It was too weird.”
I stopped. Something caught my eye at the edge of the tall grass beyond the chairs. “Robby, what’s that animal? See him?” I pointed.
He squinted into the moonlight. “Is it a raccoon? No. A gopher, maybe?”
I took a few steps toward it. “I think it’s just a squirrel. Look— it’s standing up on its back legs.”
The animal scampered forward and came into clear view in a shaft of moonlight. Then two more appeared behind it, moving out from the tall mesa grass. Their little round eyes flashed in the moonlight.
“Yes. It’s just a squirrel,” Robby said.
“Aren’t they cute?” someone said.
“Look how they’re standing up.”
“Somebody take a picture.”
But then I counted five more squirrels, darting out of the grass, running on all fours, then stopping in a ragged line and standing up, raising their small paws in front of them.
Ms. Gonzalez turned away from the group at the altar, and I saw her eyes go wide. “What are those doing here?” she cried. “Where did they come from?”
More came scurrying in front of the chairs. Grandpa Bud climbed to his feet as they scrambled a few inches from him.
And now there were more than a dozen squirrels, scurrying toward the altar, and somehow they didn’t seem cute anymore. There were too many of them. It looked like the ground was moving.
They ran a few feet, then stopped. Stood up on their hind legs. Then ran some more.
Marissa let out a scream as two squirrels hurtled into her, bumping her ankles. She danced to get away. Doug grabbed on to her to keep her from falling, and squirrels swarmed between his legs.
Some women screamed. More squirrels came shooting out from the tall grass. They were running down the aisle between the chairs, swarming over the ground, scampering over shoes and bumping into people.
Doug’s mother let out a cry and began thrashing her arms in the air as two squirrels ran up her legs.
“Look out!” someone screamed.
I stumbled back. Dozens more squirrels stampeded toward us.
Dad was slapping at his legs, trying to throw the animals off him. The air filled with screams and the thuds of animals bumping everyone.
Marissa held on to Doug. Doug was slapping and squirming, trying to shake a squirrel from his hair. He had another one on his back and one climbing one leg of his jeans.
“What is happening?” Ms. Gonzalez screamed. “It’s on my face! It’s on my face! Help me! Somebody!”
The screams echoed through the darkening night sky.
Sixteen
“I helped Grandpa Bud back to the lodge,” Robby told me. “He wasn’t hurt or anything, but he said his heart was beating like crazy. He said thank goodness he remembered his pills.”
I tsk-tsked. “Did you see Dad trying to pull that squirrel from Mrs. Falkner’s hair? She was hysterical. It wouldn’t come off.”
“One of Doug’s friends sprained his ankle trying to get back here,” Robby said. “I guess we’re lucky more people weren’t hurt.”
We were in my room, still a little breathless after our escape from the squirrel stampede on the mesa. I sprawled on the plum-colored bedspread. Robby sat hunched in the armchair across from me. His hair was damp and matted to his forehead. He had scratches on one arm from an a
ttacking squirrel.
“It was like a nightmare,” he said.
“A true horror show,” I said, puffing up the pillow behind my head. “You know, Dad told me this place is cursed. He said he begged Marissa to have her wedding at home.”
Robby snickered. “Like Marissa would ever listen to him.”
“Maybe she should have,” I replied. “I mean, first Uncle Kenny is choking on feathers. Then—”
A hard knock on the door made me sit up. I glanced at Robby. “Who is that?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said. He was tumbling his phone in his hand. I could see he was dying to call Nikki and tell her the latest.
I pulled open the door. Grandpa Bud stood there with his hand raised, about to knock again. I saw he had changed into baggy khakis and a red-and-black lumberjack shirt.
His cheeks were pink, and his eyes looked tired. He studied me for a few seconds and didn’t smile. “Harmony, can I come in?”
“Of course,” I said, pulling open the door and stepping back.
Behind me, Robby scampered to his feet. “Grandpa Bud, are you okay?”
Bud didn’t answer. He shuffled across the room toward the armchair.
“Crazy out there,” Robby said. “It’s like . . . it couldn’t happen, right?”
Grandpa Bud didn’t sit down. He turned at the chair and pointed a finger at me. “I know what you did,” he said softly.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t play innocent, Harmony,” he said, his voice stronger now. “I know what you did.”
Robby put a hand on Bud’s shoulder. “Want to sit down?”
Bud obliged. He perched on the edge of the chair and kept his eyes on me. I could feel my face going hot and I knew I was blushing.
“Harmony, do you think I don’t know those spells?” he asked.
Robby shook his head. “Spells?”
“The feathers,” Bud said. “The squirrel invasion. Harmony, I can do those in my sleep.”
My heart was pounding now. My muscles all went tense. I leaned back against the pine dresser and crossed my arms in front of my chest.