In the Shadow of Blackbirds(76)

“I didn’t kill myself.”

“I know.”

“They’re killing me.”

“I know.” I shut my eyes tighter. A warm liquid seeped across the sheets and soaked my nightgown, but I swallowed down my fear and kept talking to him. “Stephen, does one of the blackbirds look like your mother?”

Three more drips. “What?”

“Is your mother ever there when you’re suffering from the poison?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“She isn’t there.”

“What about your brother and cousin?”

“They’re blackbirds. Enormous, vicious creatures. I see their beaks—huge, luminous scissors that could tear you to shreds.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t understand. I need to touch the place where you—”

“No—they’ll rip you to pieces. Don’t you dare go anywhere near that bed, Shell. You’ll see them.”

“I want to see them. I want to know who did this to you.”

“Please, no.” He flinched enough to jerk the mattress. “Don’t go to my room. Swear to me you won’t.”

“Then tell me what I’m supposed to do. I can’t keep you with me. It’s—scary. It’s dangerous. I can’t do it, Stephen.” My eyes welled with tears. “I’ve got to let you go.” I covered my face with quivering fingers and cried.

Stephen wept as well—I could hear him shaking and sniffing behind me, which made me sputter sobs into my pillow all the more.

“Don’t …” He choked on tears. “Please don’t cry, Shell—”

“I should have stopped you from leaving for the war that day. I should have done something.”

“There was nothing else you could have done. I had already signed the papers to go.”

“We should have had the chance to be together again. You shouldn’t be dead. I’ve lost my entire life.” The pillow beneath my cheek absorbed my tears until the fabric felt drenched—and all the while the dripping liquid oozed its damp and sticky heat across the left side of my body. I coughed and struggled to find my voice. “Are you bleeding, Stephen?”

He sniffed again. “My head really hurts.”

I wiped my eyes with a corner of the quilt. “I’m going to get off the bed now. I’ll move slowly.”

“Don’t let me go yet. I’m not ready.”

“I’m just standing up so I can see what you look like.” My blood turned sluggish in my veins. I had to fight against the weight of his sadness to rise to a standing position. But I made it. I stood upright.

With the softest of steps, I turned around and faced him.

“Oh, Stephen.” I slapped my palm over my mouth and burst into tears again.

Blood, thick and dark and blackish red, caked his face and shirt. I couldn’t even see his eyes and mouth—only the innards of his head. He huddled against the wall and held his hand against his left temple, but a stream of crimson seeped through his fingers and fell to a puddle on my sheets.

My legs buckled. My knees slammed to the floor. I lowered my head to the rug and fought against black spots buzzing in front of my eyes.

“It’s too late,” he said while my brain swayed on a swelling sea of dizziness. “They’re here.”

Unconsciousness stole me away before I could see who “they” were.

.............




DOWNSTAIRS, THE CUCKOO ANNOUNCED HALF PAST FIVE in the morning.

I opened my eyes, and after several more minutes spent on the floor regaining my strength, I pushed myself to a standing position with the wobbling legs of a newborn deer.

Stephen was gone. My empty sheets looked clean and white, without one speck of blood staining them.

But I remembered what he looked like.

I staggered out to the dark hallway with nothing but the feel of the wall under my hand guiding me to my aunt’s half-open door. “Aunt Eva? Can I sleep with you until you have to get up?”

She didn’t answer, so I entered her unlit room.

“Aunt Eva?”

Strange little breathing noises rasped from her bed, as if she were crying but trying to stifle her sobs.

“Did you hear him?” I asked her. The soles of my feet found their way across her unseen floorboards. “Is that why you’re crying? I’m sorry. I’m trying to let him go. I know I need to.”

She kept breathing in that odd way. My stomach sank. The sounds didn’t resemble sobs anymore.

She was shivering.

“Oh no.” I lunged toward her bedside table and lit a match. “Oh, Christ.”

She was curled in a ball beneath her covers and trembled as if all the blankets in the world couldn’t warm her. Her face had turned tomato red, and her sweaty hair clung to her cheeks and lips. Her eyes stared at nothing.

I covered my mouth and nostrils with my hand to protect myself, even though the germs were just as likely to be waiting on my skin as traveling through the air. The match burned down to my fingers, searing my flesh, so I blew it out, struck another one, and lifted the glass chimney of her oil lamp to ignite the wick.

“The flu got inside the house,” she wheezed. “Leave before it finds you.”