Black Bird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel
I swallow with effort, through the desert in my throat. “He called you a harbinger. What is that? Are you…like him?”
“We’re not the same, but we’re both cursed. What he is—what I am—is…” He leans back and rakes long fingers through his hair. “It’s really complicated.”
“We’re veering back to evasion here,” I say in a warning tone. “What about my mom?”
“I don’t know what to say about that.” Reece’s voice drops low. “Each feature that appears on his face belonged to a person who died with Beekeeper venom in them. There’s no surviving a Beekeeper sting. You’ll kill yourself, or someone else will take you down. Did your mother go on a shooting rampage in a shopping mall? Did she ever try to kill you or anyone else?”
“No…” She died a sad death under a highway overpass after years of drug abuse.
“Then you couldn’t have seen her features on the Beekeeper. You saw someone who looked like her.”
“No. It was her. I know what I saw.” Without photographic evidence, which I’m not getting, he won’t believe me. “Whatever. Forget it.”
He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Facing a Beekeeper in true form is terrifying. Why wouldn’t you see a familiar face in all that madness?”
He makes it sound so reasonable. So excusable. “Reece, what were you doing here tonight?” I ask. “I want the truth.”
“The truth,” he says again, drawing it out as if saying it for the first time. “You won’t like it.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He stares blankly out the windshield. “I went there because I knew someone was going to die there and I—”
A rap on my window makes us both jump. A frowning police officer shines a light inside. He makes a rolling motion with his finger. Oh great.
I turn on the car to lower the window. “Good evening, officer.”
He gives me a quick survey. No clothes out of place. No stink of alcohol or glassy eyes. No heavy breathing—well, maybe a little. “What are you kids doing out here?”
Reece leans over and nods at the officer. “Just talking, sir.”
“Uh-huh.” He narrows an eye. “Windows are steamed up. You two aware this is a public parking lot?”
“Yes sir,” I say with my best smile. “We were just about to head home.”
“And where’s that?”
“Mount Franklin Estates.” Reece’s tone borders on pompous, as if declaring our neighborhood excuses us. “It’s a little after seven p.m. Have we violated any laws?”
We haven’t, and the officer knows it. He grunts something about know-it-all rich kids and backs up. “Get going, then. Do your ‘talking’ at home. And be careful,” he adds. “The drunks are out tonight.”
“Yes sir. We’re going,” I say with an earnest nod. “And thank you.”
My fingers can’t put the car in gear fast enough. I pull away with a little wave and hope he doesn’t follow us home. He doesn’t. I merge into the light town traffic, jaw clenched and hands tense around the steering wheel.
Reece’s face is turned away. All I glimpse is the illuminated line of his cheek and the curve of an eye. He stares out his window like a passenger on a bus. The policeman snapped him out of his open, sharing mood. I’m sure he thinks he came to his senses, but… “You were saying you came out to The Dredge because you knew someone was going to die?” I ask.
“Yes. My kind are drawn to death, but you already know that,” he replies coolly. “Just ask me already. Get it over with.”
His kind. That’s pretty much the answer right there. “You’re a…harbinger of death?” I ask it anyway, hardly believing I’m saying the words out loud.
He nods slowly, holding my gaze. My heart beats in the palms of my hands, the soles of my feet. My suspicions are finally confirmed. My stomach twists into knots. I would rather the first boy who makes my heart beat like this, who makes my senses come alive, be a normal, human one, but I shouldn’t be surprised. “Normal” hasn’t exactly defined much of my life.
“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 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.”
I rub the spot where the strap of my electric guitar digs into my neck. In the two nights since I followed Reece into The Dredge, I’ve slept badly. My dreams have been plagued with crows and boys with writhing faces. Bees. Swarms of them that are always on the verge of encircling me. In others, Reece is there with gruesome, all-black eyes. I’m running from him, too, but always find myself in his arms and inexplicably relieved to be there.
“I don’t know.” I tap my foot, encased in my favorite slippers—little ballet flats covered in tiny skulls. “I’m off tonight.”
“You’re more than off,” Lacey replies. “We recorded Deno’s vocals in less time, and he’s partially tone-deaf.”
“I am not tone-deaf.” Deno scratches Roger’s ear. The dog presses against Deno’s hand and grunts in appreciation. “Are you nervous about seeing your hockey boy at The Strip Mall this week? I thought that worked out well for you last time. I can schedule another pee break, if you like.”
I lean back and stare at the drop ceiling. “Do that again and I’ll strangle you with one of your own power cables. I’m just…” I close my eyes.
There are no words. None that would sound even remotely sane to them. “I’m just not feeling this right now.”
I’m so confused. When I returned home from The Dredge, I found a wilted red carnation on my window box. Seeing it didn’t surprise me, but the smile it brought to my lips did. I’m starting to look forward to my crow’s gifts. Almost as much as I’m look forward to seeing Reece again.
Deno kicks off from an amplifier and rolls his stool my way. “Does your being ‘off’ have anything to do with that neighbor of yours?”
Oh yeah. I make a face. “Pfft. No.”
“You are telling an untruth,” Lacey declares.
Deno rolls his eyes at her. “Can’t you say things normally? Like, Angie, you’re lying?”
“That would sound harsh.” Lacey’s brows go up. “My way is prettier. And Angie is not a liar. She’s telling an untruth, maybe because she doesn’t want to tell us what’s really bothering her.”
She’s right, of course. Lacey has an uncanny ability to almost always be right. Deno has the uncanny ability of not ever picking up on this. He pulls his knitted beanie low over his brows, muttering how lying and telling an untruth are the same damn thing.
I look between the two of them and wonder how it is they haven’t made out yet.
“Angie, by all accounts—meaning Deno’s report—the encounter at The Strip Mall went well.” She laces her fingers together. “You talked to Reece. Learned you have compatible taste in music. Made a connection. He’s not interested in Kiera; that seems obvious.”
“Good thing,” Deno gives Lacey a smug look. “Aiden Moore’s mom works at the hospital and he said that Braydon was admitted a few days ago after trashing his house and threatening his parents or something. He attacked a doctor and had to be restrained. He’s been on the psych floor ever since.”
Lacey looks down with a frown. “I heard that, too.”
“Ha!” Deno cries. “I told you it was more than a bee sting.”
She sneers up at him. “Daniel, Kiera Shaw did not poison Brayden. Mrs. Lowsen, the assistant nurse, hit her husband over the head with a wine bottle, then tried to kill herself. Did Kiera make Mrs. Lowsen do that, too?”
I listen with increasing nausea. I’d heard whispers about Brayden and chose to write them off as rumors, but I didn’t know about Mrs. Lowsen. She seemed nice. Definitely sane.
Stay away from the bees.
The Beekeeper. It’s the only explanation. Unlike Brayden, who was treated for a bee sting, I have no way to know if Mrs. Lowsen was stung by the Beekeeper’s bee. Given the circumstances, I can assume she was.
But what are they doing here? Why is Cadence such a hotspot for…hell, I’ll say it—magic—all of a sudden?
“Angie?” Lacey waves a hand in my face. “Earth to Angie. So did something happen between you and Reece to make you sad?”
Deno raises his brows. “All that fancy way of talking, and you come up with sad?”
“Fine.” Lacey’s brown eyes flash. “Unsettled, conflicted, and yes, she looks sad.”
For a brief moment, I consider telling them why I’m unsettled, conflicted, and sad, but I don’t. Can’t. It may be irrational, but I feel like I’d be betraying a confidence, even though I owe Reece nothing. Well, except maybe my life when he intervened with that Beekeeper. There’s also the fact that they would never believe me if I told them about the supernatural goings-on around Cadence.
I give them the easier-to-swallow answer. “It wasn’t me he had the connection with. It was my colorful alter ego, Sparo.”
Lacey leans forward and rests a hand on my knee. Her eyes are very earnest. “You do know that you and Sparo are the same person, right?”
“Yes.” I run my fingers through my hair. There’s about an inch of my natural dark roots, grown out from when I tried out being a dark blonde a few months ago. I pluck at the guitar strings, wishing I were alone. “And so does Reece. He saw through my disguise.”
“He knows?” Deno sits up straight. “You’re just telling us this now?”
I grind my teeth and pluck out the simple fourteen notes I’d been screwing up for the past half hour. “Yeah, so?”
Lacey smacks my leg. “You make us jump through hoops, tell a thousand lies to keep this alter ego of yours secret because of some social phobia you have. Then, this new guy shows up and you’re fine with him knowing. I get that you have the hots for him, but—”
“It’s not some social phobia. My music is a separate thing.” Why must I keep explaining this? “You’ve never been national news. It’s traumatizing.”
Lacey gives me a stern look. “Sparo is not national news.”
“But I was.” Sweat breaks out on my palms and I crack, just a little. Enough to finally admit the truth. “I don’t want my music to be listened to in the context of the girl with the dead junkie mother. My music is untouched by all that. Don’t you understand? I don’t want those stories—my life with her—to infect it.”
“Angie, your mother isn’t a disease,” Lacey says, nose scrunched. “She can’t contaminate your music. Or you.”
But that’s what I’m terrified of. Half afraid it’s already happening. “Just forget it. It’s done. Reece knows, and I didn’t just tell him. He accidentally saw me Friday night in the parking lot. I didn’t have my glasses on.” I slice a hand through the air. “Not that it matters. He wasn’t all that impressed.”
It shouldn’t bother me so much. Reece has far bigger issues than me or my part-time job.
Deno, who had been carefully—and wisely—quiet, appears relieved the conversation is ste
“I don’t think it’s that, not that it matters.” I fiddle with the knobs of my guitar pickups. “I’m sure Kiera told him some lovely stories about my mother and me. The ‘prostitute’ one is always a fan favorite.”
“Anyone who listens to Kiera Shaw isn’t worth your time,” Deno declares. “So there’s your litmus test for Reece.”
A smile curves Lacey’s lips. “Litmus test. Nice, Deno.”
“That’s right.” He tosses back his head. “Who’s the Neanderthal now?”
If only it were that simple. If Deno and Lacey knew what I know about Reece, they’d agree that Kiera’s blather is the least of my concerns with him. If only he weren’t so complicated. And interesting. And possibly not human. If only I didn’t know things about him that no one else does. And there’s that sadness that drapes over him like a cloak. Those lost, broken eyes that no one seems to notice but me.
Roger’s ears prick up at the sound of footsteps on the basement stairs. It’s my dad, and there’s a spring in his step. He’s excited about something, and it’s not the ginger-carrot smoothies he’s been pounding lately. He knocks on the door, sticks his head through. “Hi Deno, Lacey.” His face is flushed. “Angie, there’s a boy here.”
I’m not sure, but I might be a little offended by the surprise in his voice. “Okay. Who is it?”
His gaze flickers to the stairs, and he drops his voice to a whisper. “It’s the kid next door, I think. I don’t know his name.”
By some miracle, my friends keep quiet as my dad delivers this news. I, on the other hand, instantly turn into a jumble of nerves. “Did he say what he wanted?”
“He didn’t. He just asked to speak with you.” Dad’s voice is still incredulous, and yeah, I am a little offended.
A dozen thoughts crowd my head at once. Very few of them are good. He came here, to me, after clearly telling me to leave him alone. “Okay.” The word exits more evenly than the breath pulled in to form it. “I’ll be up in a minute.”
Deno lets out a low whistle as soon as my dad is gone. “And you didn’t think you left an impression.”