Bird (10 page)

But it's hard to be levelheaded and watch what Grandpa does
and
keep all these secrets about the cliff and the duppies and the I-don't-know-whats that make my skin tingle. Mom wouldn't be happy knowing about that because I-don't-know-whats aren't practical. Dad wouldn't be happy either, because he'd think I'm playing with spirits and things that shouldn't be touched.

I guess I don't know what they expect of me anymore.

John was swinging around to a branch slightly above mine, the last branch before the limbs got thinner and farther up. A chickadee peered down at us, chirped, then flew away.

“Besides,” John said, “you were protecting a friend, right? How could that be so bad?”

My head snapped up at him. A
friend
. Somehow, that one word melted away the dark, swirling confusion in my chest. I might not be able to tell Mom I want to be a geologist or Dad about the cliff, and I might not raise my hand a lot in school, but with John—John knew everything about me. As a friend should.

Well, he knew
almost
everything. And what he didn't know, I wanted to show him. John might not believe in duppies, but if he could share Event Horizon with me, why couldn't I share my cliff with him?

“John,” I said, hoping he couldn't hear my pounding heart, “want to go somewhere cool tomorrow, before you come over for dinner?”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Jewel Campbell, what kind of question is that?” He had propped himself in the forking branch and was scratching the back of his neck. “Of course I do. You and me, we go everywhere together.” His eyes smiled back.

I nearly broke open with joy.

CHAPTER EIGHT

WE
met up the next day at Event Horizon when the sun was high and blistering. We didn't start at my place, even though it was closer to the cliff, because Grandpa was out of his bedroom more often now, doing things to protect us from duppies, like putting out bowls of water and hanging horseshoes and red socks and sweaters right on the walls. I didn't even know that bowls of water could protect you, but the way Grandpa put them by our bedroom doors and even in the bathroom, I supposed they did. I felt bad that he was working so hard to keep a duppy out, but it's hard to feel really awful for someone who just hit your friend.

John and I walked along the dirt road that led to the footpath, which led to the cliff. His binoculars hung around his neck, as if he wanted to look at things close, real close. A flash of panic churned in my stomach: Did I really want to show him my cliff? My circle? For an instant I thought about walking right by the footpath—he'd never know, the long grasses covered it up so well. I could show John the pond with the slime over it instead, and I could scoop some up and throw it at him. The look on his face would be worth the retaliation.

“Helloooo?” he said, waving a hand in front of my face. “Earth to Jewel.”

I jumped. “What?”

“I said, ‘Do you think I should bring my mouth guard or my helmet to dinner tonight?'”

I looked at him quizzically.

He pointed to his cheek, still slightly swollen.

My neck felt hot, and I kicked at a stick on the road.

John suddenly burst out laughing. “It was a joke, Jewel!” he cried out. “It's not your fault he's crazy. Besides, with you as my backup, we can take him.”

John's smile was contagious, and I stood there smiling and staring at him, like an idiot, probably. Why wasn't John afraid of Grandpa like everyone else? Instead there John was, letting his laughter settle over the grasses, and the grasses bent as if his laughter were raindrops.

“Come on,” I said. “The footpath is this way.”

I did have to point out the footpath to John, but to me, it was so obvious I could find it in my sleep. Dad had first shown me the cliff when I was eight years old, even though Mom was upset when she found out where we were going. “There's nothing she needs to know about that cliff,” Mom said to Dad. He pressed his lips together and nodded like he agreed with her, but he took me straight there anyway.

That first time the walk took forever, like the sun was stuck in the sky and we were walking and walking and would never stop, but then suddenly there was the granite boulder and then the open space where the ground should have been. The hairs on my neck stood up.

“Can you feel it?” Dad had said.

I didn't know exactly what
it
was, but the hairs on my neck sure knew.

“This is where your brother jumped,” Dad said, and he suddenly put his hand on my shoulder, strong and firm; I couldn't move if I tried. He looked out into that open space for the longest time, and the boulder sat there and watched us, listening to every word we said, maybe like how it sat and watched and listened to the noises Bird made before he jumped.

Dad turned and said, “There are duppies here, Jewel.” His voice was low, and though he'd talked about duppies before, his voice never sounded like that, all strange and tight. I suddenly felt like crying. “Duppies are everywhere, but they like certain places. This cliff has duppies, and a duppy is what made Bird jump. The duppy tricked him.”

“Maybe we shouldn't call him Bird anymore,” I said.

Dad shook his head. “I don't know, Jewel. Whatever duppy tricked him might get upset all over again. I think we need to keep his name Bird.” But he looked unsure as he said that.

I shuddered to think about what that duppy would do if it got upset a second time. “Should we forgive the duppy?” I asked. Mom's priest talked a lot about forgiveness.

“You can't forgive this,” Dad said, and his voice turned hard.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted him to hug me, to tell me that everything was okay and that he was going to protect me from every duppy that ever existed and ever would exist, but he didn't. Instead, he took his hand from my shoulder and looked out over the cliff, and I felt coldness where his hand used to be.

“Are there good duppies here too?” I asked. I really didn't care about the answer, I just wanted him to look at me, to remember that I was here with him.

“I doubt it,” Dad said, staring off into the distance. “Most duppies are bad because someone has done something to upset them.” Dad paused. “The one that tricked my son was very, very upset.”

“Why?” I asked. “Who upset it?”

“Grandpa.”

Dad didn't know it, but I snuck away later that day and went back to that very same cliff with those legions of duppies, those bad ones and good ones and I-don't-know ones. The walk didn't seem half as long this time. I went back to where the ground dropped off, and I leaned against the boulder—I was too short to climb it back then. This is where my brother died, I thought. And right when the duppy was telling him to jump, I was being born. I ran the tips of my fingers over the rough grooves of the boulder, and I couldn't explain it but I felt like I belonged there, at that cliff.

To be honest, I don't know if there are duppies there, or if there are duppies at all. But I do know the first time I snuck out and stood at the edge of the cliff, my heart was stapled to my throat, because I knew
something was there
, and it was very, very important. The earth did too; from the grasses to the boulder to the smudged clouds to the trees in the distance, they all leaned forward, sharing in that silent secret.

It's hard to explain what happens when you realize that something is even more important than what you thought was already important. When making Mom or Dad upset suddenly seems like nothing at all. It's like the universe falls apart. Or comes together. But that's exactly what happened that day when the sky suddenly crushed down on me, when I knew that something was there. That same something tugged at the fibers inside my chest and didn't stop tugging until I picked up my first stone. That's how it started. Within a month I found my eight stones, and I've added a stone a year ever since.

As John and I headed along the footpath, he didn't say anything—not with his mouth, at least. The swooshing of his shorts, though, and the way he dragged his feet along, instead of lifting them up and placing them down softly, like mine, was as loud as shouting. It felt strange to be leading the way, unlike when we hiked to Event Horizon. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.

My thoughts boomed through my head and before I knew it we rounded the field. When I glimpsed the tip of the boulder, I stopped, and John stopped behind me.

“What is it?” he asked, his voice low.

I shook my head. How could I explain to him all that has happened out here, everything this place means?

“There's a cliff ahead,” I said. I didn't mean my voice to come out as a whisper, but it did.

“Cool.”

An ugly thought flashed through me like lightning burning over the earth. I spun around and faced him. “Why don't you know about the cliff?”

His eyebrows lifted and he leaned back a little. “What do you mean?”

“Everyone in this town knows about this cliff. About my family.”

“Your grandpa?”

“My
family
. Why don't you know, like everyone else?”

John shrugged, but he was looking at me carefully. Cautiously. “I'm visiting my uncle, like I told you.”

“Right. But how long have you been here?”

“A couple weeks.”

A couple weeks.
Could it be possible that he didn't know about Bird? The cliff? That his uncle didn't tell him about his cursed neighbors and to stay away? I paused, and I looked at the ground and imagined digging a hole next to the goldenrod by John's foot, a big hole where I could bury these fears. If it was true that he didn't know about Bird, then why would I tell him—so he could think we're freaks too?

“Jewel, what's wrong?”

I looked away, but the panic in my stomach settled down a little. It was too late to turn back now, anyway. When I lifted my eyes, I saw a red-tailed hawk circling in the distance, watching us. I took a deep breath and pretended to watch the hawk, but really I was telling myself to calm down. Finally, I looked back at John. “It's a steep cliff. Watch where you step.”

We slowed as we neared the edge of the drop-off and then looked in silence at the land spreading out before us. I had never shown someone where Bird jumped. Everyone in Caledonia already knew, and anyway, I'd always come alone. My throat tightened. He's probably going to make fun of me, I thought with shame. This is what I get for trying to have friends.

I didn't know what else to say, so I said, “This is where my brother died.”

John winced. “He fell?”

I shook my head. “He jumped.”

“From
here
?” John looked down the vertical drop, down the millions of years of dolomite and limestone and sandstone, of fossils and things that used to be hidden under the ocean but were now jutting into the air, exposed.

I paused. The sun was hot, spreading thick over the land, the air heavy and humid. “He was five. He thought he could fly,” I said. I wanted to tell him about the duppy that tricked him, but I didn't think John would believe me. Not yet.

“Wow,” John said. I waited for him to say something about what a stupid brother I had, and how I must be stupid too.

“Poor little guy.” His lips pressed sadly together as he looked down the cliff once more. “And you come here?”

“All the time.”

It was then that John really noticed my stones. He stared at them for a long time, his eyes moving from one stone to the next to the next, so intently that I started to get nervous. “Did you do this?” he asked me finally.

I nodded. To my surprise, he didn't ask why. Instead, he walked around the perimeter, slowly, until he made a full circle. Then he let out a breath, long and slow. “You really are something else, Jewel,” he said.

I didn't know quite what to say to that, so I didn't say anything at all. After a while, John started fiddling with the binoculars that hung around his neck. “You know,” he said, “back home in Virginia, we used to have this tree in my backyard that I climbed every day. I was really good at it,” he added.

I nodded again. Of course he was.

“I had a friend named Nick, and he climbed it a lot too. We did tons of things together.” John's face shifted. “Two years ago, Nick moved away, but before he left he gave me his biking gloves. Afterward, I found this hole in the trunk and put them there, and I would sit on the nearest branch right next to those gloves.” John dug in the ground with the toe of his shoe. “In a way, it was like he never left.”

At first I didn't get why he was telling me this; I was showing him my cliff, I wasn't asking about his friends back home. Then a slow realization dawned on me: John wasn't laughing. He wasn't making fun of me. A deep look had settled in his eyes, like he had gone back in time and was watching me lug my stones.

“I like it,” John said, turning around and taking in the boulder, the trees on the horizon, the sky. “No wonder you come out here. I would too.”