The Invited(21)

“I bet there are old records, something that would tell us who lived here and when,” she said, getting excited. Maybe this had something to do with the ghost the realtor had mentioned that first day. Seeing proof of an actual building renewed her resolve to start looking into the history of the land—history that she was now directly linked to as the current owner and steward. “I’ll stop in at the town clerk’s office and library this week and see what I can find out.”

Nate mumbled, “Sounds good, hon.” He was squatting down by a clump of pitcher plants, staring down the throat of one of them.

Helen set the rock back down gently, caught a hint of movement to the side, and turned her head.

    “Do you see that?” she asked.

“What?” He looked up.

She pointed to the edge of the other side of the bog. “That huge bird.”

Nate followed her finger, spotted the wading bird, and smiled. “Oh man! That’s a great blue heron!”

It was a tall bird with a long neck and stork-like legs, and it wasn’t blue at all but a lovely gray.

The bird turned and stared, eyes glowing yellow.

Intruders, the eyes seemed to say. What are you doing here?

“She’s watching us,” Helen said.

“How do you know it’s a female?” Nate asked.

“I just do,” Helen said.

Nate pulled out his phone, started taking pictures of it. “I so wish I had my camera!” he said. “When we get back, I’ll look it up. Most birds have different coloration between the males and females.”

The bird grew tired of watching, or of being watched, and took off, its enormous wings flapping, long legs tucked tight under its body, head and neck pulled back into an S shape.

They turned to go, and Helen’s eye caught on something near the ground.

“What’s that?” Nate asked, when she bent over to investigate.

“A little piece of red string,” she said. It was tied around the base of a small bush.

“Maybe it just blew in there and got stuck,” Nate suggested.

“No,” Helen said. It was tied in a neat bow. “Someone put it here.” Helen untied the string—bright red and made of nylon, she guessed—and slipped it into her pocket. As they walked back along the path, she found several more pieces of string, all tied around trees, saplings, and bushes, the loose ends hanging, waving in the breeze like little caution flags.

“Maybe the land was surveyed,” Nate said.

“Maybe,” Helen said, knowing this wasn’t it. The red strings were too haphazard for that. And what surveyors used string and not plastic tape? Now that she was looking for them, she saw them everywhere—some weathered and frayed, and some looking bright and fresh.

When they got back, the first thing Nate did was pull out his field guide to eastern birds. “Turns out it’s almost impossible to tell a male from a female,” he said. He had his new nature journal open and was doing a quick sketch of the bird, recording details of the sighting. Helen had given him the Moleskine notebook as a gift when they were packing up for Vermont. “I thought it could be a sort of field journal. To keep track of your wildlife encounters at the new house.” Nate loved it. And now the great blue heron was the first official entry.

    He started reading her heron facts from the field guide: habitat, mating, and gestation. “Though they hunt alone, they nest in colonies,” he was saying. He stopped and jotted a few of these facts down in his journal. “A female will lay two to seven eggs.”

Helen was only half listening. Her eyes were on the opened bundle Nate had set on the kitchen table: the little nest that held the tooth and nail. She hadn’t wanted to bring it into the house. She thought the best thing to do would be to take it out and bury it deep in the woods. Throw it into the bog, maybe. Then she had the irrational idea that it would act like a seed; that if she attempted to bury it or toss it into the bog, it would sprout, grow, turn into something powerful, something with more form, something alive.

“Did you know that despite their size, herons only weigh about five pounds?” Nate asked, not looking up from his field guide. “Unbelievable, right? It’s the hollow bones. All birds have hollow bones.”

Helen took in a breath. Her head ached. Her own bones felt solid and stiff as concrete, heavy and sore.

“Weren’t you going to go get us wine and pizza?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said, closing the book. He ran into the bedroom to get changed and grab his wallet.

“Hon?” he called as he walked back down the hallway. “Did you take any cash out of here?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “That’s weird. There’s about forty bucks less than I thought I had.”

“You used a bunch of cash yesterday,” she reminded him. “At breakfast, then later at the store. Oh, you went out and got beer, remember?”

“Right,” he said. “Maybe I spent more than I thought. Or maybe that kid at the store didn’t give me the right change.” He counted the money one more time, stared at it with a puzzled expression, then announced he was off. “Be back soon,” he promised.



* * *



. . .

By the time Nate returned with pizza and two bottles of wine, Helen had taken the world’s most unsatisfying lukewarm shower and changed into sweats and one of Nate’s T-shirts.