The Fifth Sacred Thing (24 page)

Madrone could feel Maya crying behind her, draped across her back. Her tears fell like stones, as her words were stones, each one weighing Madrone down, making her heavier, more solid. “And is that what you want from me?” She addressed Snake Woman, who stood beside her. “To turn back?” Because now it seemed to her that she was indeed on a road, and the way forward into the light was clear and smooth, and behind her everything was dense and loud and heavy. “What does it mean to be your instrument?”

“Turn and see,” something whispered.

For the first time since she had opened her hand to take the knife of the Goddess, she felt fear. Because, yes, she wanted to turn, turn toward the warmth and the heat and the solid opacity of flesh. But she was so far down the road, and the way back was strewn with so many burdens to bear. Maybe she didn’t have the strength. She was so tired. Maybe it was already too late.

Slowly, pushing through air dense as stone, she turned. Gravity gripped her arms, pulling her down. She thought her knees would buckle under the strain, but she steadied herself, as she used to on the first day of a long trek into the mountains, tightening the belt on a heavy pack.

The first of her burdens confronted her: a weeping old woman. Okay, Cihuacoatl, you sharp-toothed Snake Hag, Madrone said silently. If this is what you want from me, I’ll see what I can do.

She turned in the bed to embrace Maya, letting her own arms clutch the old woman’s bony shoulders and cradle her head. “Don’t cry,
abuelita
, don’t cry. It’s okay. I won’t die on you.”

Maya continued to cry, but now with relief at hearing Madrone sound like herself again.

So now I have Maya to carry, Madrone thought, and all the ones still sick in the city, the hospital where I haven’t been now for how long? Burdens, expectations: they sat heavy on her shoulders, pressing her back into her body. Just for a moment she longed to go somewhere where nobody knew her, where no one would expect miracles or be disappointed by her limitations. But she was here now, with her arms full and candles burning in front of her door.

“It’s okay,” she said again, to Maya. “It’s really going to be all right.”

Now I have become the child, Maya thought. This is what it means to grow old. I play at nagging, nurturing, feeding. But in the end, the young must comfort me.

8

B
ird had so often reconstructed the city in his mind that to move along its pathways in the flesh left him feeling translucent, as if he were actually walking around inside his head. He had prayed for this moment, but now that he was here he felt a cold sense of dread. The city looked relatively unchanged. Somewhat emptier. The rows of old Victorians still stood ankle deep in beds of squash and soybeans and cherry tomatoes. Brooks and streamlets still meandered by, feeding the verdant gardens. Fruit trees he remembered as saplings now arched and stretched, fully mature and heavily laden. As he rounded the corner to his own block, he could see children, real children, weeding the garden and playing on the path. He found himself shaking. He had wondered, sometimes, if there would be any children left.

His leg had started acting up in the last hike to the coast. He’d had to stop and wait when it went into spasm and wouldn’t hold him. He stopped for a moment now, balancing precariously, breathing deeply, letting go. He would know, soon enough, who had lived and who had died.

The doorway of Black Dragon House looked like an altar to the dead, or perhaps the shrine of a saint. From a second-story window hung a placard that read
STILL IMPROVING
. He stared at it for a long moment, wondering what it meant. Was it an affirmation, a political stance? He shook his head, confused. The stairs that led up to the front door were covered with votive candles, bunches of flowers in glass jars, plates of fruit, and baskets of bread. Only a narrow path was left for walking, and he looked at it in dismay, not sure if his unsteady legs could carry him up. Clearly somebody had died, and he willed himself not to ask who but to turn to the narrow side door that led through the passage beside the basement to the back yard. It was unlocked, and he let himself in, closing it behind him.

In a pool of shade on the patch of grass next to the herb garden, someone lay sleeping. Yes, Bird thought, as he set down his knapsack and knelt beside the still form, yes, it was Madrone. He could hardly bear to breathe. She was alive.

She was beautiful in her sleep, her hair sprawling on the grass, her skin
ruddy as true madrone bark, her eyelids fluttering in dream. He wanted to touch her but he didn’t want to wake her. She looked so tired. He could see, even in her sleep, lines of strain and weariness. She looked thinner than he remembered, and when he looked closely he could see a pallor under the bronze of her cheeks. But she was real, she lived. He would have to learn to believe it, to believe that he lived too.

Madrone woke, feeling chilled. Someone was sitting next to her. For a sleepy, automatic moment, she thought it was Sandy; then memory came back to her, aching. She opened her eyes. She had been a long way down and was slow coming back. Maybe she was getting to be like Maya, seeing ghosts—a Bird ghost, older, grayer, grimmer than the boy she remembered.

“It’s really me,” he said.

“Bird?”

“El mismo
. The same.”

“You’re alive?”

He laughed. He was alive and he was glad, glad. “Feel me.”

He held out his hand and she took it, but what she felt was not the slender, supple fingers she expected but an old man’s hand, knotted with old pain. Still, it was no ghost but warm flesh.

“You broke your hand,” she said.

“They broke it for me. I can’t play guitar for you anymore.”

She reached for him and held him close, and then she began to cry. He wanted to cry too, but he had learned not to; what he had frozen in himself wasn’t ready yet to thaw. He would wait until he knew whom he was crying for.

After a while she pulled back, to look at him. His face was thinner, the skin pitted and leathery, his dark eyes staring out at her from deep, shadowed hollows. Etched in his skin, she could read lines of hunger and pain. He was no longer the beautiful boy she remembered. Tenderly, wonderingly, she reached up and touched his temple. Yes, he was real, a hauntingly familiar stranger.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “
¡Estás vivo!
You’re really alive. You’re really here.”

With her eyes open, she was still more beautiful. He wanted not to move, not to speak, just to hold this shattering happiness forever in the stillness of the moment. And yet he suspected he could let it go and still new happiness would unfold. She would continue to look at him. She would continue to exist.

“I can hardly believe it myself,” he said at last. “I was afraid I’d come back and find you all were dead.”

“Enough are,” she said.

Now it comes, he thought, the pain, but I can bear it now.

“I saw the front steps,” he said. “The candles and the
ofrendas.”

Madrone laughed. “Oh, those are for me. People seem to have developed an inflated sense of my capabilities lately. And I’ve been sick. But not dead.”

“Who is?”

She reached out and took his hand. “Your brother.”

That hurt. He let it sink down and turn itself into pain. “And?”

“Sandy is the latest.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Her eyes were brimming with tears, and a current of comfort passed between their hands. How different it feels to mourn him together, Madrone thought. Relentlessly, she continued. “And most of the old ones. Rio.”

“Maya?”

She smiled at him, grateful to offer good news. “Napping up in her bedroom.”

“¿Es verdad?”

“No shit!
She
always said you were too mean to kill. I should have believed her. But I couldn’t stand wondering what was happening to you, if you were alive. It was easier to believe you were dead. Was it bad, Bird?”

“It wasn’t good.”

“Will you tell me about it?”

“Yeah, in time. Not now. Tell me who else?”

She told him, then, the whole litany of the dead. They were silent. He felt a terrible mixture of loss and relief. He wanted to mourn and he wanted to laugh. He’d grieved so much already; what was left was more like a wicked sense of triumph that somebody survived.

“Madre Tierra,”
he said. “I’m sorry about Sandy. So very sorry. And Marley, and all of them.
Lo siento, lo siento mucho
. And where are the others?”

“Sage and Nita and Holybear are up on the Delta, at their experimental ponds. They’ll be back after Rainreturn.”

“How are you? Are you well? You look tired.”

“I’m fine. I was sick, like I said, but I’m getting better.”

Something closed off in her as she spoke, and Bird suspected she was lying. She didn’t look fine, she looked faded, as if she might suddenly wink out and enter some other dimension. He wanted to grab her, wrap his body around her, and shelter her.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “There’ll be soup in a little while. We should feast you. Tomatoes are ripe, and of course there’s zucchini. Tofu. We could harvest some catfish from the tanks in the greenhouse. Something went wrong with one of them, but the rest are okay. I wish we had eggs, but the hens aren’t laying well.”

“It sounds like a feast,” he said. “What happened to the chickens?”

“I don’t know. The neighbors have been looking after them. It’s probably something with their feed. I guess I’ve let a lot of things go since Sandy died.”

“How’s the water?”

“Holding out real well this year. You can take a bath or a long hot shower if you want.” She could sit with him forever, talking about food, about water. There was so much more they would need to say, but they didn’t need to say it now.

“I need a long one.” He smiled. “I came the last eighty miles in the back of a chicken truck.”

“I don’t care.” Madrone stood up and put her arms around him, reaching for his mouth with hers. She wanted to suck him in and hold him and keep him safe and alive forever.

He wanted her with an ache that was like a note vibrating all through his body, crying, Now! Here! In the dirt! To wait a quarter of an hour might mean to wait forever; the world could shift, she could suddenly disappear.

“Te quiero,”
Bird said. “I want you.”

“I know. Here and now? With the Sisters likely to look out the window?”

“Yeah. Does it seem like a bad idea?” They smiled at each other.

“We have the whole night. We have tomorrow and the night after that and the night after that. As long as we can stay alive.”

“It doesn’t seem possible.”

“It is. It’s true.”

“Okay. I’ll try to believe it.”

“You go see your grandmother,” she told him.

“Right. I should see her first. I want to see her.”

“I’ll round us up some food.”

“Okay.”

He turned to walk up the back steps, and she watched him go. He moved slowly as he climbed the stairs, as if his body hurt him. She still thought of him as a boy who ran so fast and leaped so far that he almost did fly. Suddenly she ran after him, grabbing at his ankle through the stair rails.

“Bird!”

“What is it?”

She took a long breath and laughed, then, letting go. “I just had to touch you. I was afraid I made you up in my mind. That if I didn’t see you for a moment, you’d disappear.”

“I know. I feel the same way. But I’m home now, and I have no intention of disappearing.”

He knew the house was real and that he was really there, in the body, because his body hurt. His bad leg ached as he clumped awkwardly up the stairs and entered the kitchen through the back door. Odd to walk into that room and find no one there. In his memory it was always crowded with people, tea brewing, dinner cooking, arguments and laughter around the table. He continued down the hall and stood in the doorway of Maya’s room.

She was nestling under her afghan, and she looked frail and old, transformed into the Crone herself. Her hair glowed white in the sunlight, and her face was a luminescent map of wrinkles. Her skin seemed transparent, as if she were already halfway to the Shining Isles. And she was speaking in a low voice to someone who wasn’t there.