The Hummingbird's Cage (10 page)

Not
long after Laurel told me about Tinkerbell, Jessie said a few ladies from town would arrive the next morning—they were holding a bee to finish up a wedding quilt for the local schoolteacher. She invited me to join them, and pressed till I felt no choice but to accept. She looked pleased when I did.

“It'll be fine weather for it,” she said. “These old bones know.”

Olin was behind her at the dining room table playing dominoes with Laurel. He looked up at me and winked.

*   *   *

Early the next morning came a menacing rumble. I glanced out my bedroom window to see heavy clouds crowding in from the
east. A gust of wind lashed the bedroom curtains. You could smell the storm brewing.

Wooden deck chairs already sat under the oak tree, arranged in a tight circle that Olin had set up the night before at Jessie's instruction. But it seemed the ladies were about to get rained out.

Then I noticed Jessie in the vegetable garden below, standing between rows of tomato plants. Her hands were on her hips and she was glaring. She raised the skirt of her apron and waved it, the way she does to chase off a stray hen.

“Shoo, now! Shoo!”

But there was no hen in sight, and Jessie wasn't looking down, but up—up at the storm clouds.

Another rumble, a louder volley than before. She shook her head and retreated back inside.

We didn't eat breakfast at the outside trestle table, but at the little oak one in the kitchen—all but Olin, who said he had business in the fields.

He'd been outside all morning, but had been vague about where or why. Earlier, I'd spotted him off in the distance—as still and straight as a soldier at inspection, far outside his fieldstone fence. He had faced east, too, just like Jessie.

I almost called out to him then, but something stopped me. Somehow it felt like an intrusion. Now here he was again, running off.

Another battery of thunder; the storm was drawing nigh.

“A pity about your bee,” I told Jessie. “You could always bring it inside.”

She looked at me thoughtfully. “We always have it outside. Never you mind.”

The ladies arrived soon after breakfast. Liz LaGow was dark and sturdy—not tall, but vigorous. She was carrying a thick bundle wrapped in cloth and trussed with twine. Her dark, probing eyes took me in from ponytail to sandals. I knew she and her husband owned the general store. She arrived with her sister, Molly Knox, who was taller than Liz, and slimmer, with finer features. She had a coil of brunette braid at the crown of her head and eyes that were less penetrating than her sister's. Molly owned the hotel in town.

Like Jessie, the sisters wore simple belted dresses hemmed a prim distance below the knee. I couldn't get a handle on how old they might be—they seemed ageless, but had the same bold energy as Jessie. For some reason, I could clearly picture the three of them marching hundreds of miles alongside Conestoga wagons, raising children on hardscrabble farms on the frontier.

The teacher, though, was altogether different. Bree Wythe was younger than I—petite and lively in jeans and a sleeveless blouse of coral silk. She wore a string of small turquoise nuggets around her neck. Her hair was ash blond, styled to her shoulders. Her smile was warm as she took my hand.

“I'm so happy to meet you,” she said in a voice with slight Southern notes. She linked her arm through mine as we followed the others through the house toward the back door. “Thanks for helping on the quilt—I don't know about you, but I've never finished a stitch in my life.”

We stopped just inside the kitchen, where Jessie and the sisters stood at the open doorway to the backyard, staring at a bank of black clouds that now nearly eclipsed the sky. Wind whipped the branches of the old oak. Lightning crackled; thunder growled.

The three women exchanged grim looks, then without a word forged ahead into the yard. The wind smacked their long skirts about their legs and tore at their hair, pulling it loose from buns and braids.

I paused in the doorway with Bree and stared after them. I expected Bree to be as rattled as I was, but she only smiled and tugged on me until we were heading for the oak, too.

Liz was loosening the twine around her bundle, drawing out a large quilt. The others opened small sewing bags to withdraw scissors, needles, thimbles and spools of thread. Deftly they stretched the quilt into a four-legged frame, then settled back in their chairs. Bree and I took our seats, and the five of us tucked into the quilt as if the wind weren't howling or the clouds about to split open.

The scene was so outrageous, so surreal, I couldn't speak.

Molly handed me a needle, spool and thimble, and Jessie did the same for Bree. Numbly I snipped off a length and bent to thread the needle, but of course it was impossible with the wind whipping the thread, and though it was only midmorning, it had grown as dark as dusk. I was about to give up when Molly passed me the needle she'd just threaded, apparently with little trouble.

Conversation would only have been drowned out, so the women bent to their own work, needles darting.

Thunder exploded directly over our heads in a long, furious roar that rattled the windows of the house. I could taste the electrical charge.

“We should go inside!” I shouted.

The women paused long enough to stare at me, then shook their heads. Molly leaned in close. “This is nothing, Joanna. Just wait.”

Thunder again, followed hard by lightning. I stared about, my heart in my throat.

Then, just as I was about to bolt for the house, everything abruptly changed.

The banshee noise broke off as suddenly as flipping a switch. The thrashing branches of the oak eased till they were rocking like cradles. A rift began to open in the clouds directly overhead, wider by the second, splitting apart to expose a strip of cobalt blue sky. Shafts of yellow sunlight cut through the rift and hit the oak tree.

“There, now,” Jessie muttered with a sigh. “Much better.”

She and the sisters laid down their needles and calmly began to tuck their hair back in place. I watched them, stunned. I could only guess we were in the eye of the storm, although I'd never heard of thunderstorms having eyes. But they must, for this storm was clearly far from over.

On every side of us it still raged, hammering down the grass all along the bowl of the valley, whipsawing the trees. Fields of corn and wheat rolled like great waves. Clouds boiled, black and green and sickly yellow. In the distance, rain fell in flat unbroken sheets. Lightning flashed—not in single jagged bolts but in branching spectacles that lit up the sky. Thunder bellowed, but it wasn't rattling the windows anymore.

There was chaos all around while we sat undisturbed in an acre of oasis.

Liz began to rub her shoulder as if she'd strained it. “About time,” she muttered. “Couldn't hear myself think with that racket.”

“I . . . I don't understand,” I said. “What's happening?”

Liz frowned at me dismissively, then turned to Bree. “Honey,” she said, “tell us about the wedding. At the hotel, is it?”

Bree looked relieved to lay down her needle. “Middle of December. Reuben says it's a slow time at the ranch. Joanna, you're more than welcome.”

I stared at her, still confused. December was a long way off—I couldn't imagine still being in Morro by then. Bree was just being polite.

“Thank you,” I managed finally. “If I'm still here.”

Jessie dropped her hands to her lap and stared toward the barn just as Olin emerged with a deck chair under each arm, Laurel trailing behind. “Speak of the devil,” she muttered. “What's that old fool up to now?”

He stopped in a patch of grass well within our sight and set the chairs side by side facing the western end of the valley, which was now bearing the brunt of the storm. Then the two of them took their seats to watch as calmly as if they were in a movie theater.

Liz was bristling, clearly feeling provoked. Molly was stifling a smile.

“Pay him no mind,” Jessie said airily. “Don't give him the satisfaction.”

Olin pulled the caps off two pop bottles and handed one to Laurel. It was then I noticed Bree studying me curiously.

“Joanna, summer's about over,” she said. “School's starting soon. Will you be enrolling your daughter?”

The question caught me off guard. The last time Laurel had left school, she'd brought home her first-grade certificate, launching our escape.

I shrugged, feigning indifference. “I haven't made any plans.”

I was sure Jim had alerted Laurel's school by now, and they'd let him know about any request to transfer her records. Enrolling her anywhere else would be firing off a flare.

“If it's a matter of documents, I wouldn't worry,” said Bree. “I'd never turn a child away because of paperwork.”

“And don't forget,” said Jessie. “We're not county. We do things our own way out here.”

“But there must be a school board,” I protested. “Officials to account to.”

“Honey”—Jessie gestured around the circle—“most of the school board is sitting right here.” She looked meaningfully at Liz and Molly, who nodded in return. “All right, then. It's settled.”

Apparently the discussion was over. And Laurel was enrolled in school.

“You been to town yet?” Liz asked. “No sense putting it off,” she said when I shook my head. “We don't bite. Come on up and visit the store. We got everything you need, and most everything you'd want.”

“Check out the hotel, too,” Bree urged. “A lovely old Victorian. High tea on weekends. Very authentic.”

“Yes, indeed.” Liz smirked.
“Authentic.”

Molly's cheeks reddened. “And why not?” she said. “George has been very helpful.”

Liz and Jessie said nothing.

“Who's George?” I asked finally.

“Oh,” said Jessie. “He's Molly's gentleman caller.”

“George is from Bristol,” Molly said stiffly. “England.”

I didn't ask how they'd managed to meet, but couldn't imagine it was through any online dating site. In fact, I couldn't
picture Molly—or her sister or Jessie—on a computer at all. Jessie didn't keep so much as a microwave in her house.

What I could picture—quite suddenly and with utter clarity—was one or the other placing a lonely-hearts newspaper ad. I could see photos exchanged—formal poses in sepia tones—then letters back and forth over many months, many years. The progression of their courtship washed over me with surprising surety.

Jessie laid down her needle and gazed about. “Storm broke.”

It had broken long ago over our heads, of course, but now it was breaking in earnest over the rest of the valley. Lightning streaked soundlessly far off to the west, where thunderheads were in galloping retreat.

I paused, too, taking in the aftermath. The valley appeared to be standing still, catching its breath, set loose from time and space. It felt as if every clock in the world had wound down and suddenly stopped.

Even the air was motionless, leaving the valley as composed and vivid as a diorama. As wild and reckless as the storm had been, so profound now was the calm that followed it. The lull was contagious—it washed over me and through me in a wave of warmth. I'd never felt so at peace. I didn't want it to end.

None of us spoke. None of us moved. We sat together in stillness and silence under the oak tree, caught up in a consecrated moment.

A second passed. Then another. And with the next, the clocks began to tick again. Rain began to drip from the leaves
and the rooflines. Birds stirred in the branches, and in the distance Willow Creek rushed noisily from the downpour.

The valley felt purged. Revived.

“Well, ladies.” Jessie sighed. “Gather up.”

Sewing bags opened up again, and back went needles, thread and thimbles. Liz and Molly unframed the quilt, folded it and slid it back into its fabric bag.

Olin still sat with Laurel at the far corner of the barn. He turned toward me and raised his pop bottle in salute.

And I knew what he was telling me:
You're welcome
.

After
the storm, after the sisters had left with Bree, I packed the last of the deck chairs back in the barn and stood alone in the open doorway. Dusk was falling, and lights were switching on in the farmhouse. Scraps of voices drifted outside, rising and falling in conversation. The radio broke into a twangy two-step, something about “Too Old to Cut the Mustard.”

I stared about me at every homely and familiar object, every bit of landscape, as if they had suddenly become alien to me. As if at any moment they could transform into something else altogether, or vanish outright. Plow, tiller, scythe. Fence, tree, house. Even as I turned from one to the next, they seemed to pulsate, their lines blurring. I blinked, and they were back.

It was then I realized that the question I'd been asking—
How did we get here?
—was painfully inadequate. Suddenly it
was almost irrelevant that I couldn't remember what happened that last day in Wheeler, between the frantic sprint toward Albuquerque, the flashing lights in the rearview and waking up in that bed upstairs.

This wasn't just a matter of recall.

It was a matter of
here itself
.

My stomach heaved and my knees buckled. I slid down the doorjamb, pushing off to land on a ladder that was lying along the barn wall. I closed my eyes and sucked in deep breaths, willing every particle to be very, very still.

“Gettin' a handle on the moment?”

I blinked up at Olin, standing over me in the doorway, his head quirked. His fingers worked a leaf of rolling paper packed with a line of loose tobacco, deftly snugging it into a cigarette. He licked the seal closed, stuck one end in his mouth and pulled a matchbook from his shirt pocket. When the cigarette was lit, he puffed twice as he slid the matches back into place. Then he offered me his hand.

“Join me outside,” he said.

He eased me up and led me from the barn to the trestle table. As we sat, I barely noticed or cared that its benches were still soaked from the rain. Olin watched me for a long moment over his cigarette. He seemed expectant.

“Stew for supper,” he said finally. “If you can eat.”

I shook my head. I started to say something, then stopped. Words had become meaningless.

“Or,” Olin continued, “we could just sit here and talk about the weather.”

I stared at him and he gazed back, placid as ever. His lines never wavered, never shifted out of focus. It gave me encouragement.

“I thought it was me,” I said. “With the Mountain. The way it pulls at me. Almost . . . talks to me. But it isn't me, is it?”

Olin took a drag on his cigarette, the tip flaring cherry red in the gathering dusk, mirroring pinpoints of light in his eyes. The smoke when he exhaled smelled sweet. He waited for me to continue.

“And you and Jessie—you're not just old-fashioned, are you? I can't explain it, but you're . . . somehow you're out of time and place.”

If I expected Olin to be offended, he wasn't. Nor did he protest. Instead, he smiled indulgently.

I glanced at the western sky as the first stars sparked into place, much like the lights in the farmhouse. There was no trace of storm clouds left.

“And that thunderstorm. Deny it if you want, but . . .” I hesitated. The evening air wasn't cool, but I was starting to shiver.

“Go on,” Olin urged.

“I think . . . I think you made it. Called it down. Whatever. And Jessie and the sisters—” I shook my head again as if to clear it. “Somehow they busted it up right over us, didn't they? Stopped it smack in its tracks. So they could have their bee. Jessie said they always have their bee outside.”

“They surely do.”

“Rain or shine, right? Only it never rains. At least not where they are. Olin, what is this place? You have to tell me. And tell me like I'm four years old, because that's about all I can handle right now.”

He bent his head and flicked ash off the tip of his cigarette. He scraped his thumbnail thoughtfully along his chin, as if considering how best to approach the subject. I watched him in fascination and fear, hardly daring to breathe.

“A while ago,” Olin began slowly, “we had a fella come through, said he was a rabbi. From Brooklyn, he said. And him and me, we got to talkin'. He told me about this place by the name of
Olam HaEmet
. A ‘Place of Truth,' he called it. He said there comes a time when you go to this Place of Truth, and you stay put till you figure things out. Reflect on all the things you did in your life. Or maybe on all the things you should've done but didn't. He said that's where he was headed.”

I started to laugh, but it snagged in my throat. A rabbi? Olin in a tête-à-tête with a rabbi—a tallit slung over his shoulders and tefillin boxes strapped to his head? But overriding the sense of the surreal was the gist of Olin's words. And even more, the meaning between them. I wanted him to fill in those gaps for me unbidden. At the same time, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs for him to stop. I tried to lick my lips, but my tongue was as dry as dust.

“And this place, where do you find it?” I asked.

“Not so much
where
,” Olin said gently, “as
how
.”

I was shivering so hard now my teeth began to clatter. I tried to rub the gooseflesh from my bare arms, but my fingers were icicles. The fact was, I remembered reading something about Olam HaEmet, a long time ago. Except the writer had called it the “World of Truth.” It's a place observant Jews believe waits on the Other Side. A place for reflection.

A place for departed souls.

“No,” I whispered.

“You never know about expectations,” Olin said mildly. “Everybody's got his own, I guess. When they first cross over.”

Cross over? What the hell . . . ?

A faint ringing started in my ears and my body felt as weightless as balsa wood.

“You're crazy,” I said. “Or I am. This isn't happening.”

“Give me your hands, Joanna.”

I glared back at him as if this—all this—were somehow his fault. Some cruel prank.

He said it again, this time more firmly: “Give me your hands.”

His tone was still soothing, but there was a note of command in it, too. I found myself reaching for him, my hands now shaking so violently they looked palsied. I shuddered as he took them. The infusion of warmth I felt the first time he ever touched me—that first morning at breakfast, at this very same table—was nothing compared to the jolt of heat that coursed through me now, driving out the bone-chill. The shivering began to ease.

“This can't be.” Tears were sliding down my cheeks. “
I
can't be.”

“Go ahead; cry it out if you want. Won't make it any less so.”

“But how? I don't know how . . .” An accident on the road? Had I hit another car or careened off the highway to escape that speeding cruiser? Another realization struck, and I pulled my hands from Olin's to stare in horror at the house. “Oh, dear God . . . Laurel . . .”

“Now, now. It's all right. Don't she look all right to you?”

All right?
Since we'd come here, Laurel had never looked healthier. Or seemed happier. Suddenly I thought about that night in her room when she'd asked if we were here forever. If
this
were our forever . . .

“Does she know?” I asked.

Olin considered for a moment. “Not exactly. She's workin' it out—children, they catch on when they're ready. But she ain't quite there yet.”

Five minutes ago, I would've said I wasn't quite there yet, either. Not ready to catch on. Not ready at all. But I had been suspicious, asking questions and grasping for answers, and Olin had only been obliging me.

Now he was regarding me with sympathy, as if another shoe were about to drop.

“Joanna, when we first met, you recall what I said? That you had the look of a gal who wouldn't be stayin' long.”

“A short-timer. I remember.”

He nodded. “Now, that's the thing. Near all the folks who come through, they go on eventually. But there's some, a few—they up and turn back.”

“I don't understand.”

“It ain't their time. They ain't fixed in one place yet, nor the other. So they got a choice to make. To stay or go back.”

“Are you— Olin, what are you saying?”

“Near as I can tell,” he continued, “you're here for a reason. You were in a bad way, and for a long time. Back in Wheeler.”

I ducked my head, unsure how much Olin knew, even without my telling.

“This here—” Olin glanced up and down the valley, nearly eclipsed now by the gathering dusk. “Think of this as a place to rest. To get strong and straight inside. Think of it like your own Place of Truth. To consider where you come from, and what you might do different if you go back.”

Jim's face flashed in front of me, and I shuddered involuntarily.

“That man of yours,” Olin said knowingly. “Seems to me he was bleedin' the life out of you for a long time before you ever made it here.”

“And he sure as hell won't stop if he gets the chance to do it again.”

“No, he won't. It ain't in him to stop.”

“So why would I
ever
want to go back?”

“That ain't for me to say.”

I leaned on the table, burying my face in my hands, anxious for the moment to be over. More than anything I wanted to look up again and find no trace of Olin or the farm or that Mountain. I wasn't ruling out insanity, either—his or mine. I'd sidled up to it often enough over these last few years. But when you've finally lost it—lost it good and proper—do you even realize it? Do you know if you've given up, crawled inside your own head and pulled the ladder up after you?
Die Gedanken sind frei,
my Oma used to sing.
Thoughts are free
 . . .
The darkest dungeon is futile, for my thoughts tear all gates and walls asunder . . .
For all I knew, I was still out there staggering in the desert, just as Simon had said, my broken brain cooking up this mirage . . .

And yet . . .

And yet I did know—knew marrow-deep—this was no delusion. No mirage. I knew because, with all my heart and soul, I wanted it to be. But no such luck. Not for me.

Finally I raised my head. “I don't— Olin, I have so many questions . . .”

“You hold on to them,” he said. “Now ain't the time for questions, and I sure ain't the one for answers. What's important—well, it's best we all figure out the important things on our own. In our own way.”

Suddenly I felt wrung out, weak as an infant. “What should I do?” I asked. “I don't know what to do.”

“First off, you go on inside and get yourself some supper. You get yourself a good night's sleep. You wake up tomorrow and praise the day. You be mindful. And the next day, and the day after that, you get up and do it all over again.
You
live
.”

Was that all? Eat, sleep, wake, work—in the afterlife, the same rules applied? I had no idea of the proprieties here. The physics. Were there other short-timers? Was everyone who crossed paths here a departed spirit? If not, would I know the difference? Would
they
? Olin and Jessie spoke of Wheeler as if they'd been there many times. As if they went there still . . .

“Olin,” I whispered, as if Jim could be within earshot. “Can my husband find us here?”

Olin looked past me for so long I thought he didn't intend to answer. Then he did.

“That ain't for me to say, neither.”