The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender(50)

Henry did go back upstairs to his room, but instead of getting his notebook, he emptied his toy chest. He lined up all his stuffed animals along the wall in order of size, and then placed his building blocks and toy cars on the cracks of the floorboards.

When the toy chest was empty, Henry climbed in. Though the toy chest was fairly large and Henry was a fairly small fifteen-year-old boy, he could fit only by hanging his legs over the side. Being in the chest made him feel safe. And safe was how he needed to feel right then. With his knees pointed at his chin Henry could talk to the Sad Man about the maps and the cat on the wall and the bee in the bush.

There were good people and bad people, this Henry knew for sure. His mother was good. And me, of course. Gabe. Trouver wasn’t a person, but he was good all the same. Policemen were good people too. He had learned that a few days earlier when a policeman came into the bakery. The pretty blond woman who worked behind the counter handed the policeman a cup of coffee and a croissant fresh from the oven. When the policeman tried to pay, Penelope said, “On the house.” When he left, the woman turned to Henry and said, “That’s honorable work there. He’s a good man for doing it.”

As for bad people, Henry knew only one. Henry knew he was a bad person because the Sad Man told him so. He also knew that no matter how hard he had tried to tell them, no one else understood this. Not his grandmother, not his mother, not me, not Gabe. Trouver probably did, but he wasn’t a person. Trouver was a dog, and, even if he did understand, what good would that do?

Somehow he had to find a way to leave the house on the hill before the rain came. Because the rain was coming and it all happened after the rain. That’s what the Sad Man said.

From the personal diary of Nathaniel Sorrows:

June 21, 1959

I haven’t left my aunt’s living room since June 18. Three days. I haven’t eaten or slept; instead, I stand in front of the window and watch and wait. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I pace. When I need to relieve myself, I just open the window and piss onto the dried-up flower bed below.

I started this vigil on the day the postman delivered a letter from Pastor Graves. The letter, typed by the church secretary onto reverent-looking parchment paper, stated that my assistance was no longer needed. It also asked me to refrain from crossing onto church grounds. The pastor’s reprimand barely made a bruise on my fevered skin.

The change came four days ago in the midst of the homily. I realized that the church, the holy doctrines, the religious ramblings I’d once tried so hard to follow were all just parts of a lie created by humans so blind and so flawed they’d mistake a divine being for one of their wretched own.

My neighbors are content to sing useless hymns about rivers, fountains, and rocks, but their devotions are empty.

None of them know anything about devotion! I pushed through the parishioners and made my way to the front of the church. From the wooden pulpit, I told them as much, pounding my fist in anger. Behind closed eyes, they prayed for promotions and the newest kitchen gadget. What could they give with their flawed, human love? I had known what she was from the very beginning. An Angel — one of God’s true messengers — lived at the end of my road. I had touched her feathers with my outstretched fingers, had caught a fever from the mere touch of her rosebud tongue.

I know what they saw: my wrinkled clothes; the dark circles under my eyes, weak and red from so many sleepless nights; hair matted with unwash. Pastor Graves approached me. He covered my hand with his own. I could read the fear in his eyes, saw how the irises bled black into the brown.

“Of whom do you speak?” he asked quietly.

I began to laugh.

I pulled my hand out from under Pastor Graves’s light grip. How sorry I felt for the reverend, his life wasted on such a monstrous bunch of tricks! I left the church then, knowing, even before receiving the letter, that I would never return.





FOR FOURTEEN YEARS, I could only watch from my window each time Pinnacle Lane was transformed for the solstice celebration. From a distance, I watched the neighborhood men set up booths where chocolate truffles, plates of krumkake, and husks of yellow corn would be sold for a nickel; I watched gaggles of girls from the high school’s Key Club arrive with their mothers in tow, toting pies to sell for the benefit of the Veterans Hospital downtown; I watched the musicians gather, bringing mandolins, accordions, creaky violins, xylophones, clarinets, and sitars; I watched the giant bonfire in the school parking lot blaze against the night sky; and I cursed every living thing with feathers.

But that year was going to be different.

Cardigan had been secretly preparing for solstice for weeks. She didn’t even let Rowe or me in on her plan until the day before, when she told Rowe to meet us not at the bottom of the hill as usual, but at the festival itself.

“You’ll see why soon enough!” Cardigan told him, laughing.

I stood in front of my bedroom window, watching the sunset paint glorious shades of orange and purple across the sky while Cardigan brushed my hair. The festivities were already well under way, but I’d insisted on waiting until the sun had set to make my escape. It would already be far earlier than I’d ever been out before — it was risky.

But what a risk to take, I thought, smiling to myself.

It took Cardigan a few hours of persistent nagging to convince me to cut and dye my hair.

“Just think,” Cardigan said, “no one will recognize you.”