Black Bird of the Gallows

  I get to my feet and brush snow off my knees. “I’m pretty sure that advice is about bears,” I mutter, heart still racing. “I don’t know what shows you’re watching, but—”

  Reece draws in a sharp breath. “Angie!”

  What now? My gaze snaps to the sky, expecting another round of crows, but no, he’s pointing at my coat sleeve like it’s on fire. What’s he worked up about? The only thing out of place is a bee, resting on my coat sleeve. “Oh, it’s a honeybee.”

  His lips draw tight over his teeth. “That’s not a—” He snaps his mouth shut. “Just hold still.” Teeth clenched, he raises a gloved hand.

  I rear back, alarmed that maybe he’s looking to swat me, but his gaze is riveted on the bee. “Hey, it’s not hurting anything,” I say. “What are you doing? It’s not—”

  He whacks the bee to the ground and proceeds to stomp it. Really, really stomp it.

  I watch this, wondering if I missed a key scene here. In eighth grade science, we’d spent a whole unit learning about bees, so I thought it was common knowledge that honeybees aren’t naturally aggressive. They die after they sting, so they don’t tend to let loose without good reason. Reece must have missed that lesson.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I think it’s dead.”

  He’s breathless. His hands shake. “Just making sure.”

  “What’s with you?” A clanking rumble announces the approach of the school bus. “A bunch of crows dive-bombing you is fine, but one bee is the end of the world?”

  He swallows hard. “Thought you might be allergic.”

  “I’m not. Are you?” He shakes his head as I blink down at the pulverized bee, a smear in the snow. “That was weird.”

  “Trust me, you haven’t seen weird.”

  I glimpse his face before he turns away. I wish I hadn’t. What I see there sours my stomach. His features are stretched taut with grief. Reece looks as if his soul itself had been cleaved. As if he has to stitch it up every day just to keep what’s left of him together. The sight sends a shiver burning down my spine because I know how that feels. My dad said there was “no Mr. Fernandez.” Maybe Reece lost his father tragically. My heart bumps unsteadily against my ribs. This boy knows grief. He knows that isolating ache that doesn’t quite ever go away. It’s right there, laid bare for anyone who cares to look. How many would, in the halls of Cadence High?

  The bus grinds to a halt and the doors wheeze open.

  Reece pauses on the first step, looks at me over his shoulder. “Angie, stay away from the bees.”

  “But—” I fall silent as something raw flashes in those dark, haunted eyes.

  Eyes as sharp and black as the crows who touched his skin and played with his hair.

  He wasn’t afraid then, but he is now.

  2-the lunchroom

  Cadence High has the smallest cafeteria in the history of cafeterias. It’s cramped, uncomfortably warm, and smells like thirty years of deep-fried things. Narrow tables are arranged in long rows and spaced close to one another. Pull out your chair too far and you’ll bump into the one behind you. It’s impossible to sit alone, even if you wanted to.

  My friend Deno drops his tray next to mine with a heavy clunk. It’s heaped with the cafeteria’s dubious fare. He seems to enjoy it, so I check a snarky comment about how troughs would be more efficient than trays in this cafeteria and try to disentangle my congealed pile of french fries.

  “Check out the new kid.” Deno jerks a chin to where Reece stands in line.

  “That’s Reece,” I say. “My new neighbor.”

  Deno’s brows rise above the thick aqua frames of glasses he doesn’t need. “No way. Dead family house?”

  “Can’t call it that anymore.” I wag a soggy french fry at him. “New family is very much alive.”

  “Sure, until Ortley’s ghost shows up and scares the piss out of them.”

  I roll my eyes. “The house isn’t haunted.” But the boy living there might be. The memory of Reece’s anguished expression is warmer and fresher than the food in front of me.

  Deno grunts then scoops a spoonful of soup. “Dude broke in on his first day. ’Course, he looks just like them. Maybe they don’t realize he’s new.”

  Deno’s right. Reece is in. I watch him from my designated spot at our table. Most of the school band, as well as a strong contingent from the Arts and Literature Club, sits at this long row of tables. We think we’re cool, but the rest of the student body doesn’t necessarily agree. It’s the next row of tables over, which I have a perfect view of—packed with varsity jackets, pretty hair, and vapid conversation—that’s supposedly the one to be at. I don’t see it. I can’t imagine wanting to sit anywhere else.

  There is little doubt which table Reece will be sitting at. He’s still in line and has rendered himself nearly invisible among the pack of Cadence High’s athletic stars. He laughs easily and a little too loud, like the rest of the boys. His grin holds on the edge of a perpetual smirk. His eyes are greatly transformed—banked, heavy-lidded, and disinterested, they render him unrecognizable from the boy I met at the bus stop. Reece’s gaze slides to me, then away, without a flicker of recognition.

  Seeing him like this makes my belly sink with disappointment. Bus-stop Reece was interesting, someone I related to on a pretty deep level. I thought we had a little bonding moment this morning, but School Reece belongs to a different species than me. Still, as I sharpen my gaze, I think I see signs indicating which is genuine and which is fake—his fingernail picks the seam of his shirt. His smirk holds like it’s superglued in place. It’s like he’s wearing camouflage, designed to render him indistinguishable from the rest of the socially well-to-do. It may fool them, but not me, who has always been different. You can paint black-and-white stripes on a horse, but that doesn’t mean he belongs in a zebra herd.

  Deno shakes his head. Not one strand of hair budges from the retro-wave thing he’s got going on up there. “Too bad you didn’t get someone cool moving in next door,” he says with a mischievous smile. “We really could have used a decent keyboard player.”

  Lacey Taggert, my closest girlfriend and the most gifted pianist I’ve ever met, sits down across from me. She purses her full lips and sends Deno a condescending sniff. “Oh yes. It’s never the drums we have to record a hundred times to get right.”

  I laugh and angle a finger at Deno. “You set yourself up for that.”

  Deno shrugs. He knows he’s not a great drummer. He is, however, a genius sound engineer and the best musical partner I could ask for. Our friendship fits around music, filling in the cracks and gaps like mortar.

  “Angie, how do you feel about that boy living next door?” Lacey studies me with serious brown eyes that tell me she caught me staring at Reece. She’s horribly observant.

  Deno ignores that the question was meant for me and frowns at her. “What kind of question is that?”

  I know exactly what kind of question that is. Lacey and I have been friends since I showed up at middle school band practice, clutching my dead mom’s battered acoustic guitar that still stank of pot and, shaking so hard, I dropped all my picks in the sound hole. She pried the guitar from my hands and shook the picks out, saying only a real musician would come out to play when they were so scared. Lacey, coming from a Very Serious Family of Musicians, held to the belief that “real” musicians are rare persons to be treasured. I know that she also treasures Deno, although in a different way than I do. That difference makes it a bad time for an honest answer to her question. Not with Deno studying my face like he’s looking for Waldo in one of my pores.

  Yeah. I should mention that Deno and I made out once. Yes, I made out with a guy who likes to be called Deno, though his name is really Daniel Steinway. I can’t fault the guy. I go by the name “Sparo” when I DJ at the local club. So, Deno and I made out once, last year, after a particularly magical recording session. I’m not sure how it started—swept up in the moment, I guess. He enjoyed the encounter more than I did, but di
dn’t make a big deal about it when I politely declined another go. We never spoke of it again, meaning we never addressed it, so I don’t know how he’d react if I announced that I like another boy. I don’t want to possibly hurt him over such a nonissue as Reece, who I just met today under strange circumstances. I haven’t decided what I think of Reece Fernandez, but I’ve got to stop staring at him like he’s parading around in skivvies with gallons of mint chip ice cream on his broad shoulders. Although that’s a really nice vision.

  Lacey’s lips curve. “What are you staring at, Angie?”

  Crap. “Nothing.” I take a deep drink from my water bottle. “I’m not staring at anything.”

  “Mmm. Okay.” Lacey raises one dark eyebrow, and I’d like to tape her mouth shut. But I get it. Despite a romantic streak she’d like to deny, Lacey has a thing for Deno. Something about him works for her, and it’s more than his good looks. She didn’t even seem to mind when he started doing doofy things with his hair and calling himself Deno.

  Lacey might not know about the make-out episode from last year. I suspect Deno had a chucklehead moment and spilled. I never mentioned it.

  “Seriously?” Deno’s chest deflates. “You’re checking out the new guy, Ange?”

  Yes, I am. I flip my hand. “Pfft. New bug in the jar.”

  Sitting directly across from me, Lacey has a better view of the lunch line. She tilts her head. “He’s cute.” She says this like she’s noticing for the first time, and maybe she is. Lacey’s never gone for the sporty type. Neither have I, come to think of it. It’s a day of surprises.

  Lacey’s eyes widen. “Oh, oh. He’s coming over here.”

  A french fry sticks halfway down my trachea. “No, he’s not.”

  Oh, but he is. I feel a presence behind my right shoulder and my senses go on high alert.

  “Hey, Angie,” says a voice with a New England accent.

  I turn and look up slowly, trying to ignore the hot burn of curious eyes on me, on us. But the way Reece stands there with his lunch tray is transitory. He’s not here to sit. Has no intention of trying. That’s a good thing. And it kind of bums me out.

  “Hi Reece.” I paste on an easy expression, complete with a courteous smile. “What’s up?”

  Tension in his features takes me by surprise. Maybe he thinks I’m going to blow him off in front of everyone. Or he’s worried I told people about the crows. Or that creepy guy. Or any of the other weirdness he managed to pack into the six minutes we spent together while waiting for the bus.

  “My mom would like to ask your dad about a few things—like who plows your driveway and stuff.” He shifts on his feet. “So I was wondering if I could get your house number or your dad’s cell. To give to my mom.”

  “Uh, sure,” I mumble, a little confused. A little more embarrassed. I rip out a scrap of notebook paper and scribble down both numbers, but not mine. He very clearly didn’t ask for that one.

  At the table behind Lacey, a strawberry blond head pops up. “Over here, Reece.”

  Ugh. Kiera Shaw. Her squeaky voice makes my molars grind. No one here has put more effort into making me miserable than Kiera.

  He gives her a smile—a charming one—then looks back at me. Balancing his tray on one hand, he takes the paper from me. Our fingers brush. I pull my hand away, surprised by how tuned in I am to his touch. It’s a zing to the senses. Suddenly, the world seems a little more vivid.

  “Thanks.” He tucks the paper into his front jeans pocket. His eyes look darker than they did this morning.

  “Sure. No problem.” I squeeze my tingling hands together under the table. Why couldn’t I have felt this with Deno? That would have been so much more convenient.

  Kiera calls his name again. “Saved you a seat.” She touches the empty chair next to her. I wonder who was ousted to free up the spot.

  He smiles at her, but there’s weariness to his movements, in the set of his shoulders. And again, that strange whiff of despair. It clings to him like the after-stench of cigarette smoke. No one else seems to sense it.

  He straightens his shoulders and walks back around my table to Kiera’s. Her smile turns megawatt as he heads for the seat she saved for him. I watch from beneath lowered lids as he’s sucked into the abyss of highlighted hair and varsity jackets.

  Lacey lurches over the table. “What was that?”

  I shove a cold french fry into my mouth and chew without tasting. “It was nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Lacey’s eyes are shining. “He asked you for your number. That’s something.”

  I rip the crust of my sandwich into little pieces. “He asked for my dad’s number. There’s a difference. Sort of a big one.”

  Lacey shakes her head but drops the subject. A little too late, I remember Deno sitting next to me.

  He adjusts his glasses and peers at me intently. “Which one did you give him?”

  “Which what?” I ask, unable to keep an edge from my voice.

  “Which number?” His brow furrows. “Did you give him your cell?”

  “No,” I reply slowly. “I gave him my dad’s cell and the house line. Those are the ones he asked for. For snowplowing purposes.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” Deno’s brow smooths out, but he looks confused. “You go up to a girl to ask for a phone number, and you ask for her dad’s cell but not hers?”

  Does he have to rub it in? “And the house line,” I murmur with a glower, but part of me is relieved Deno’s more puzzled by this than anything else. Of course, I don’t know what his reaction would have been if Reece had asked for my cell.

  I’m not surprised he didn’t want it. I shouldn’t be disappointed.

  “Daniel,” Lacey says, using his real name to irritate him. Which it does. “Let’s drop it, okay?”

  “Fine,” Deno says with a shrug. “But the dude’s weird, if you ask me. And I wouldn’t sit so close to Kiera, if I were him.” He leans toward us and lowers his voice. “She poisons her boyfriends.”

  I smack Deno’s arm. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  He rubs his arm and sighs gustily. “It’s not. Reece better not piss her off, or he’ll find out for himself soon enough.”

  “Deno, please stop it,” Lacey says tartly. “That’s not true. I’m sure Kiera Shaw did not poison anyone.”

  “No?” Deno raises a brow. “Brayden McKee broke up with her two days ago, and he was sent home this morning with a suspicious ailment.”

  “Not suspicious,” Lacey says. “Brayden got stung by a bee in the parking lot and his tongue swelled up. The nurse gave him an epinephrine shot, then his parents took him home.”

  “That’s what they want you to think,” Deno says around a chicken finger. “He’s not allergic to bees.”

  “How do you know?” Lacey asks.

  “Because almost all of us got stung two years ago at that school trip to Thomas Lake, remember? Brayden didn’t need any shots.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  Deno turns his gaze to the ceiling. “Geez, Lace…” The rest of their argument fades out.

  Stay away from the bees.

  I glance up, peering around Lacey to Reece’s back. He’s having an intense, animated conversation with Cody Knox about what I can only assume is hockey, since that’s the only topic Cody talks about with multi-word replies. To look at Reece now, nothing about him appears strange. He’s as normal as a teenage sports fanboy could be, grinning and nodding with no pretense whatsoever. I was probably reading into the entire bus-stop thing with the bees. Some people are really afraid of them. Even big, handsome guys who like hockey are allowed to have phobias.

  Just then, Kiera Shaw lets out one of her high-pitched giggles and taps Reece on the shoulder. He turns to her.

  “You should come out with us on Friday night.” Kiera leans into him, brushing her shoulder against his. “There’s a local club—The Strip Mall—that has an awesome DJ on Friday nights.”

  “The Strip Mall
?” Reece asks. “Is that seriously the name?”

  She tosses her head. “I know. Dumb name, right? But it actually was a strip mall. It sat empty for years until this lady bought it and gutted the whole thing and made a club out of it. It’s actually pretty cool.”

  Reece shrugs. He has the nerve to remain unconvinced, despite Kiera’s declaration of The Strip Mall’s coolness. Amazing. “What kind of music?” he asks.

  A grin pops up on my face. Even just watching their backs, I can see Kiera struggle to regroup. “It’s like…” Her finger circles the air as she digs deep for a sophisticated term. “Electronic music,” she says, finally. “But not techno. Well, maybe some techno. It’s just cool remixes and chill tunes. Friday night is all ages, but you have to be twenty-one to drink.” She waves a hand. “Someone usually brings a flask. But it’s no big deal, either way. The DJ, Sparo, is so city. She seriously rocks.”

  I morph a bark of laughter into a noisy cough. People look, but I don’t care. This conversation is a gift from the gods. I’m betting Kiera made up the term “city” to sound cultured, but it’s such a gem, I file it into long-term memory. I’ll remember that bit about the flask, too. Maybe the bouncers should take a closer look in those sparkly little purses she and her friends carry.

  Deno thumps me on the back. “Hey, you okay?”

  “Yeah, fine,” I choke out.

  Deno pumps me on the back again, this time pitching my face within inches of my pile of soggy fries. “Good. No hemlock maneuver, then,” he says.

  “Stop hitting her, you Neanderthal. And it’s Heimlich maneuver, not hemlock,” Lacey says, probably wondering why she’s so hung up on this guy. “But you’d kill a person by giving them either one.”

  Deno gives my back one last thump that sends me into another round of coughing. I draw more looks, including Reece’s, who swivels to look at me. His expression is unreadable. Concern or annoyance—it could be either. Or neither. For one reckless moment, I meet his gaze and smile. I know it’s a mistake the instant my lips curve.