Black Bird of the Gallows(15)

The trees are thick, although the path is wide from decades of trucks coming and going. My breath comes hard as we traverse up, then down, then sideways along the slope. Finally, we arrive at a chain link fence, overgrown with vines and rusting at the joints. I curl back a loose section, and Roger and I duck through.

I found this place in the first year I moved here. My dad and I utilized the hiking trails as “bonding exercises,” as prescribed by my therapist. I spied this side path during one of our walks and followed it once when out on my own. I’ve kept coming back ever since. The entrance to the Burnham mine is a high, wide concrete dome. A wooden-slat wall was built to close it off, with a door, sort of. The whole thing is fairly rotten, but you’d know that only if you went up and touched it. The decaying padlock is just for show. You can open the gate and prop it open with a rock. That’s what I always do. It’s what I do now.

Temperate, musty, moist air wafts from the entrance. The air is always the same, no matter the season. It warms in the winter and cools in the summer. It’s a constant thing, unchanged by seasons or time or weather.

I sit just inside the mine entrance, on a natural ledge of rock, back and feet braced on either side of the wooden frame. Sunlight slants an angle across my belly. To my right, there is only blackness as the mineshaft twists deep into the rock below. The tunnel holds no allure for me. Fear of collapse, of getting lost, of poisonous gases, keeps me in the pool of sunlight that reaches a few feet inside the mine.

I remove my envelope of photos and open the flap gingerly, as if the pictures may bite me. It’s not comfortable to look at these. In a few of them, she’s sober. In most, she’s not. The one on top of the stack is of the nots. Her half-lidded eyes gaze blankly at the camera as she flashes the peace sign and a vacant smile with me perched next to her, beaming a wide grin. I might’ve been four. Those were the days when I was too young to understand my mother’s illness.

But I’m not looking at the photos to reminisce. I’m looking to examine, and that purpose gives me strength. I angle the photo into the sun and focus in on my mother’s mouth. She’s smiling, and kind of far away, so I can’t accurately compare this image of her mouth to the one I saw on the creature from the parking lot. I flip through them quickly, scanning for a close-up, unsmiling image of my mother. I find it in an unremarkable candid shot of her sleeping. I lean close, half hoping, half dreading that her features match the ones I saw on Friday night. There’s her mole. Her nose, her lips, her mouth. It’s all there. Her features are exactly as they were on the creepy bee-guy’s face.

I rub my eyes, trying desperately to make sense of the events that transpired at The Strip Mall the previous night and the gifts in my window box. Either they happened as I recall them, or I am losing my mind. I prefer option number one, despite knowing that if the face-changing man is real—if I am really getting gifts from red-eyed crows—it means I am dealing with things I can’t comprehend. Things likely dangerous.

The scratch of shoes on gravel snaps my attention. A figure steps through the chain link fence. Roger is on his feet in an instant, sniffing the air.

Reece.

I fumble the photographs, hastily gather up a few that drop, then tuck everything in my pocket. He doesn’t see me yet. He’s maneuvering through the brush, dealing with the fence’s sharp edges. Plus, he has headphones on. His phone is tucked in his coat pocket. I have a bad moment wondering what to do. He’d be easily confronted here. I could find a stick or something and—look asshole, you will tell me what that thing was last night, or I’ll—

—give away my Sparo identity; that’s what would happen and it’s not an option. I have so many questions. I’m afraid that the guy with the shifting face will return. I’m afraid of the crows. Of the bees. Of the dread growing in my belly. Of liking this boy.

Confronting or threatening Reece won’t get me what I want. Befriending him may, but I don’t know if I can pull that off. It’s impossible to be friends with someone who has answers you desperately want. I could try to get out of here before he sees me.

Roger has other thoughts. He strains at the leash, tail wagging furiously. He lets out a friendly yap. Reece looks up, sees us, and his eyes widen. He tugs off the headphones.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, not terribly friendly.

“I could ask you that.” Unlike my encounter with Kiera Shaw last week, I don’t feel at risk of crumbling. Maybe because I don’t believe he’s cruel. “This is my spot.”

He comes forward, stops right in front of me. “Is not.”

I point at the thick beam just above where my feet are braced. “My name’s on it.”

He leans down and squints at the letters I carved there with a sharp rock a few years ago. “So it is.” But he makes no move to leave. Instead, he braces one foot on the low, flat stone next to my hip. “May I join you?”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.” Here I am, trying to be polite. I pick a stone out of the rocky ground, annoyed with how unsettled he makes me feel. There’s so much swirling through my head. The horror of last night still sits fresh and vivid in the forefront. This place has always been somewhere I’ve been able to think clearly, and now it will be imprinted with a memory of him.

“Why?” he asks. “Of all the places to go, an abandoned mine is kind of creepy.”