Black Bird of the Gallows(25)

“It’s my fault the Beekeeper noticed you,” he murmurs. “Did he have all the faces when you saw him at the bus stop?”

“I thought I was imagining it.”

“Hmm,” he says after a pause. “That’s interesting. It’s unusual for a normal human to see a Beekeeper’s true face.”

“What do they usually see?”

“They see a man so perfectly generic, so unremarkable, he’s essentially invisible.”

“Only guys?” I ask.

“I don’t know the full story on them.” He waves a hand. “They were prisoners, or something, but yes. All the Beekeepers I’ve ever seen or heard about are male.”

“Why is that Beekeeper watching me?”

“He’s watching a lot of people. Try not to worry. We are also watching you.”

There’s that “we” again. “Who’s ‘we’? The crows?”

“Yes.” No pause that time.

“Are you seriously telling me you’re a crow?” I draw my top lip between my teeth and try to make that compute. “How does that even work?”

“Like I said, it’s complicated.” He turns away from me to the dark trees flickering by. “I don’t even fully know how it works. You’d have to ask those who cursed us. Unfortunately, they’ve been dead for a thousand years.”

“A thousand years?”

He shrugs. “Give or take.”

If that last bit was supposed to blow my mind and shut me up, it works, for a little while. I switch between thinking he’s messing with me again or he’s delusional. “I can’t believe this. You’re not a one-thousand-year-old crow.”

“No way, I’m much younger.” His voice is without a trace of humor. “But the magic that made me this way is that old.”

“Oh, sure.” My voice pitches high. “Magic.”

“Hey, you asked.”

I pull the car to the shoulder just inside the entrance to our neighborhood. The car idles in park. I’m not ready to take him, or myself, home. “I have more questions.” Way more than I’d like.

“I’ve told you everything I can.” He presses long fingers into the center of his forehead. “Which is already more than I should have.”

“You can’t just drop magic crows in my lap and leave it at that.”

“I just did.” His voice takes on an edge. “Angie, I answered the questions relevant to your safety. The rest is curiosity, and I’m sorry, but I can’t indulge it. I have more than just my own selfish wants to consider.”

“I’m going to keep following you until you answer me.”

“I strongly advise against that.” Reece’s eyes narrow to glimmering slivers. “Go home. Make music. Study for the geometry test tomorrow. Be a normal teenager.” His features take on that grief-stricken look again. “This isn’t how I wanted things to go with us, Angie. I wanted…” He clips off his words with a terse head shake. “Forget it.”

“No. Don’t do that.” My voice is barely above a whisper, but he hears it.

Reece’s gaze drops to my mouth. His own lips part and his gaze darkens. He leans toward me and for one giant, breathless moment, I think he’s going to kiss me. Wait. Kissing? This had not been on the radar when I set out on this absurd mission a hour or so ago. My senses fly into high alert. He braces a hand on the dash, then lurches back. He flexes the fingers of his right hand with a wince.

“Hey, are you hurt?” I reach for his hand, but he folds them over his chest.

“No. I’m fine.” His voice is rough. His face is a mess of conflict.

“Reece—”

“No. No. I have to go.” He opens the door and gets out as if the seat is on fire. “Don’t follow me again, Angie. Death is never far behind me. I don’t want it to catch you.”

He slams the door and takes off at a run, disappearing through Mrs. Garrett’s backyard. He must be truly desperate to get away from me if he’s willing to set off her motion lights and her Rottweilers to take the direct route home.

I let my car idle at the stop sign. Someone honks and steers around me, and it barely registers. My head is a buzzing mess of unanswered questions, unnamed fears, unbelievable thoughts. Slowly, I lift my leaden foot off the brake and drive the remaining half-mile home. Nothing looks the same as it had when I left for school this morning. Even these streets, my own home, seem foreign.

I pull into my driveway. A crow swoops low over my car, wings silhouetted in the floodlight. And I wonder…

Magic.

If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I’d have said magic is impossible. Irrational. Just considering its existence in this world is insane. But I saw bees crawl out of a man’s mouth. I saw him change faces like pages of a book.

I hold my breath and watch the crow glide away. It melts into the blackness, silent as a ghost. Lonely as the night.

Dark as a boy’s eyes.





12-the ride


“It’s no good, Angie. Timing’s off.” Lacey clicks the mouse with a flourish, ending the frustrating, twenty-second attempt to record a simple fourteen-note sequence. We’re in my basement music studio having zero fun at an activity which is usually pure enjoyment. She spins in my desk chair and faces me with a puzzled frown. “What’s going on? You know how to play this.”